


The Hand of Justice

by Aurelia_Combeferre



Series: The 1830s AU [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crime, F/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4755329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurelia_Combeferre/pseuds/Aurelia_Combeferre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1840. A murder case gets more complicated when one of the youngest detectives in Paris, Gavroche Thenardier, recognizes the victim from his family's shadowy past. Is someone trying to eradicate the criminals of Paris....permanently?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

****

**The Hand of Justice**

_Part 1: The Room Above the Bookshop_

_October 1840_

It was a fact that a fortnight could not pass in the Latin Quartier without some ruckus or intrigue rearing its head. ‘ _To have a proper quiet one mustn’t go looking for it,’_ Gavroche Thenardier noted as he stood under a tree by one of the quieter pathways at the Esplanade des Invalides. It was as fine an autumn day as a young man of twenty could ask for, the sort that was best spent out in the open air instead of at a desk in a musty office. ‘ _Of course they get young hands to clear away the old moss at the Prefecture,’_ he thought as he wiped his hands as if to purge any traces of dust lingering on his fingertips.

A rustling overhead drew his attention prompting him to look up and stretch out his hand in time to catch an apple before it could bounce off his shoulder. He laughed as he saw the green tinge that still clung to the fruit’s skin. “You’d make a rotten fruit picker, Laure,” he drawled.

“Because I don’t have long legs yet like you!” a voice chirped from up in the boughs. Another apple fell from the tree moments before a little girl shimmied down to the ground. She shook her golden curls out of her face before looking up defiantly at Gavroche. “One day I’ll get as tall as Maman and I won’t have to climb up all the time.”  

Gavroche snorted at this reference to his oldest sister. “She reaches the biggest fruit better, that’s what,” he said as he picked up the riper apple and tossed it to his niece. “Look at you; you’re a _mome_ in a dress, not a little lady.”

“Still am!” Laure protested as she picked some dirt off the hem of her maroon frock. “There are no more red apples. Can we get my book now?”

“You’d sleep on pages if you could,” Gavroche retorted as he jammed his tall hat back onto his head, allowing a few reddish strands of hair to escape in a way that would have had some of his stricter superiors frowning. He straightened up and dusted off the small detective’s badge clipped to the collar of his blue morning coat. “What do you want to read about, how to go to the moon?”

Laure’s dark eyes sparkled at this query. “Is there a book on it?”

“No, we need the book first on how to make a ship to get there,” Gavroche replied quickly as they began walking towards the Rue de l’Universite, where there were a number of small bookshops fronting the old Palais Bourbon, which had now been turned into a library and convention hall. By now the park was a little busier, with a few small groups strolling and avoiding the few carriages that drove down the Esplanade’s main road. Gavroche made sure to check his pocket for the two francs that his brother-in-law had handed to him earlier in the day for this specific errand. “So is it a book on stories or actual events?”

“Stories. It has pictures too so that I can share it with Julien and then with Tienne when he’s bigger,” Laure said as they exited the park. She scowled for a moment as she scuffed her shoes. “I don’t know if they’d like it too, so I think they should get their own books like Uncle Neville and Uncle Jacques do.”

“Now those two _momes_ do sleep on pages,” Gavroche muttered. His younger brothers had both turned out to be particularly academic his second youngest sibling Neville was passionate about the natural sciences while Jacques (no longer so little) had a talent for languages. ‘ _Their sort of school suits them better,’_ he thought; he could easily imagine his brothers doing more than the minimum requirements at any university. As for himself, his talents and inclinations lay in a less bookish direction.

All of a sudden Laure broke into a run, stopping just in front a glass window of a brick building on the corner of the Rue de Bourgogne. “It’s still here!” she announced cheerily before dashing into the cluttered bookshop.  “Hurry up Uncle Gavroche!”

Gavroche laughed before sauntering into the store, which he noted to occupy the entire ground floor of what appeared to be a tenement, with an auxiliary access to the upper floors in the form of a narrow staircase that zigzagged up the side of the building. Once inside the shop he touched his knuckles to the brim of his hat by way of greeting the store’s proprietor. “It’s just to get a book for my niece. There is no need to worry, Citizen,” he explained.

“I’ve never had anything to fear from your custom, Inspector,” the squat, balding seller replied amiably. “What is this, your day off?”

“The first,” Gavroche replied. Ever since he’d started his training as a detective at the Prefecture, he had very little opportunity for leisure; in fact he would have otherwise been cooped up at work if one of the senior inspectors hadn’t noticed and forced him outdoors ‘for his complexion’s sake’. ‘ _Or for simply taking in the air,’_ he thought as he glanced over his shoulder towards the bustling street outside.

The bookseller grinned at Laure as he helped her climb onto a stepladder. “Now a pretty little girl like you would like one of these books for ladies’ lessons,” he said as he set out several daintily illustrated paperback volumes.

Laure leafed through two of these books before shaking her head. “I still want that big book, please,” she said, pointing to the volume in the window.

“Traveller’s tales!” the seller laughed as he went to fetch the book. “Why would you like these ridiculous stories from far away?”

“Because they’re new stories,” Laure replied in a matter of fact tone.

“Are you sure? I have other new books.”

“Maman and Papa said I could get the book if it was still here, and no one’s bought it yet!”

Gavroche slipped the two franc pieces over to the seller. If Laure’s cajoling wouldn’t work, then certainly the sight of silver would work the desired wonders.  “You can put something less startling to the ladies in the window now,” he quipped.

“I will never understand children these days,” the seller said as he began to wrap up the book, only to grit his teeth at the sound of a door suddenly slamming overhead. “Now what’s with those damned lodgers----“

More footsteps came from the upper floors and now even the side stairway. “Someone help! There’s been a murder!” a woman shrieked as she ran through the shop’s backdoor. “Good God, Citizen! Someone get the police!”

Even before this lady was finished speaking, Gavroche was already out the door and racing up the narrow back stairs. In a few moments he was at the building’s fourth storey, where by now a crowd of lodgers in varying states of dishabille were gathered around an open doorway. Gavroche wrinkled his nose at the unmistakable metallic tang of blood that had been in the air a little too long mingled with the first reek of decomposition. “Excuse me, a detective passing through,” he said as he unclipped his badge from his coat.

“Now that was quick for you!” an old man wheezed. “Though not quick enough, this fellow should have been collared days ago!”

“Days! Why he wasn’t doing anything!” a harridan screeched. “It’s whoever pinched him who should have been caught. Can’t believe you didn’t hear it.”

“I only _live_ here, I don’t mind the place!”

Gavroche stepped past these bickering neighbours, stopping at the room’s threshold. A man lay in bed, covered by a rumpled heap of blankets; were it not for the crimson stains on the sheets and up on the walls, his attitude might have been taken for that of being at rest.  There were no drawers or broken chests to suggest any sign of burglary; however the low ceilinged room’s single window was just slightly ajar. ‘ _No one flew this way though,’_ he realized as he went to the window, only to find that the side access missed it entirely; the stairwell terminated at a door that led to the far end of the corridor.

“Uncle Gavroche! That man isn’t snoring!” Laure chirped from the doorway.

Gavroche turned to look at his niece, who was tiptoeing near one of the bloodstains on the floor. “Laure, please go downstairs. You can read your book there,” he said quickly, signing to the bookseller to help him distract her. He also caught sight of a gangly boy gawking at the scene. “You’ve got wings large enough. Send word to the station house at the Place Bellechasse that there has been a body. The word is Detective Thenardier,” he said, pressing a five sou piece into this youth’s hand.

The buck toothed boy looked down at the coin and saluted. “Who should I look for?”

“Anyone there. I only need to move him,” Gavroche said. There was no point in giving chase; it was clear to him that the culprit was long gone, and perhaps unseen at that. He examined the room again and stepped over to the bed. With two fingers he pulled back the sheet, seeing now that they were not torn and ripped in any way. There were only two stab wounds on the body, one slicing precisely across the throat and the other on the man’s left side. Yet it was not this detail that gave Gavroche some pause; even with the rictus of death and the signs of decay this unfortunate’s face was still recognizable. “Why what lays you low today, _Mangedentelle_?” he muttered.

“Do you know him?” an old woman asked eagerly.

“Only what the crows say,” Gavroche replied as he did a double take, just to confirm that this lean, stub-nosed and long-toothed visage was the same as that in his memory. He caught sight of a scar on this man’s right hand and shook his head; he knew the story from that particular mark. He turned at the sound of footsteps rushing up the stairwell. “You bounced here quickly enough Frassin,” he greeted.

Frassin, a taller young man who also wore a junior detective’s badge, blanched at the sight of blood splashing the walls. “Is he known to the Prefecture?”

“The older set. They would call him _Mangedentelle,’_ Gavroche explained. “Someone’s done for him and well enough. No marks.”

“I’ve gotten some of the boys here to move him to the morgue,” Frassin said. He clucked his tongue when he saw Laure still peeping out from behind the doorjamb. “What’s your niece doing here? This is no place for children!”

“Downstairs was, Citizen Frassin,” Laure argued. She looked at the bloodstains on the walls. “How did they get there?”

“That’s for me to find out---after I bring you home. We’re too close to the sky,” Gavroche said firmly. “Give me an hour or so Frassin,” he said to his colleague.

“I think this is more left for the Prefecture’s office, if he is already known,” Frassin reasoned. “I’ll let Inspector Bahorel know you’re ending your day off!”

“Make it an evening,” Gavroche quipped before scooping up Laure to carry her back downstairs to the bookshop to pick up their purchase. In short order they were back outdoors, heading back to the Invalides and down to the gate opening to the Rue Grenelle. From here it was a straightforward omnibus ride down to the Place Saint-Sulpice, which by now was abuzz with vendors in the square and churchgoers hurrying to vespers. Gavroche and Laure alighted here and walked up a side street, then turned right to the quieter Rue Guisarde.

As usual the door of the 9th house on this street was left open, a sign that either the gentleman or the lady of the house was in the vicinity. “Laure, there is one thing first---“Gavroche meant to admonish as soon as they entered the yard but Laure raced into the house and made a beeline for the study-reading room on the ground floor. He clucked his tongue before following his niece into the house. ’ _Now all quiet will be undone,’_ he thought.

In the study room Laure dropped her new book on a side table and rushed up to a lady who was just dipping a pen into an inkwell. “Maman! Uncle Gavroche and I saw a big man in a little room sleeping under a red blanket,” she announced as she tugged on this woman’s skirt.

Eponine Thenardier-Enjolras nearly knocked over her inkwell onto the translation she was penning but managed to right it at the last moment. Even at the age of twenty-five with seven of those years living away from the streets, she was still remarkably quick with her hands. “Laure! You and Gavroche are back so early!” she greeted as she picked up the child and smoothed out her hair.

Laure nodded quickly as she kicked off her shoes to keep from tracking mud on her mother’s green dress. “Uncle Gavroche said we have to go home,” she pouted. “It’s because of something wrong about that big man.”

“Which was, _petite?’_

 _“_ He wasn’t really sleeping right but _why_ did they look for the police and not a doctor like Uncle Combeferre or Uncle Joly?”

Eponine’s brown eyes widened as she looked at her daughter and then at Gavroche. “What is she talking about?” she asked her brother.

“Someone got pinched above the bookshop,” Gavroche replied. He shrugged as he saw his sister frown, perhaps from his use of argot. “I did tell her to stay downstairs, but she is fast.”

Laure looked from Gavroche to Eponine. “Pinched? The boys at school get pinched all the time but they don’t look like that!”

“No, this man did something terrible and he got in trouble for it,” Eponine said. She kissed Laure’s forehead. “Now you have to wash your face and put your book upstairs while I’ll get some bread, cheese, and some jam for you and your brothers when they wake up from their nap. Can you be a little quiet for me, _petite_?”

Laure nodded again, now distracted by the prospect of an afternoon snack. “Will Uncle Gavroche also have bread too?”

“If he’s not too busy,” Eponine replied before setting Laure back on her feet. She waited for Laure to scamper out of the room before pulling a stray strand of reddish hair out of her face and then sitting up straight in her chair “You said pinched, and I s’pose that can only mean a certain sort of killing for a certain sort of person.”

“What else could it mean? Gavroche asked. He knew that Eponine had a long memory for these sorts of matters. “It was _Mangedentelle_.”

Eponine’s jaw dropped. “The Lace-eater?”

“I knew you’d remember him,” Gavroche said. “He still has that mark you gave him.”

“I s’pose he would,” Eponine murmured before biting her lip. “No one else was hurt?”

“You know how these things go, Ponine. In and out, quiet and about,” Gavroche drawled.

“It’s something of a good thing then.” She reached for a note on her desk but she suddenly sprung from her seat and ran to the doorway. “Antoine!””

Antoine Enjolras met Eponine halfway but before she could throw her arms around him he instead tilted up her chin to kiss her. “I thought you’d still be busy,” he greeted when he pulled away.

“So did I, but I s’pose it’s just as well we’re both back,” Eponine said before embracing him properly then reaching out to help him set aside the bag of books and papers he was carrying. “Any luck today?”

“With some, not all matters,” Enjolras said.  Even though he had eschewed running for a second term in the Parisian legislature, he was still often entangled in public matters thanks to his work with the Ministry of Justice and various executive commissions. “The question of conditions in the prisons is never entirely resolved.”

“At least they are living and not dying, and that always counts for something I s’pose.”

Gavroche rolled his eyes at this banter, even if he knew he shouldn’t have expected anything less from his sister and his brother-in-law.  ‘ _Just the same, like seven years ago,’_ he thought till he realized that Enjolras was also eyeing him curiously. “Laure and I had to hurry back here too,” he greeted.

“That is peculiar. Did something happen?” Enjolras asked.

“The aftermath of a terrible scene,” Gavroche replied. “My line of work though.”

“If it’s a matter of law, I could be of assistance,” Enjolras offered.

Gavroche shook his head; as well meaning and brilliant as his brother-in-law was, his expertise did not cover these darker matters of the street. “Unless your court annals write down people by their street names, the ink isn’t of much use.”

“What he means to say is that a criminal has been killed, and not by the police,” Eponine cut in. She was quiet for a moment as she looked down at the floor. “Oh what _was_ his given name anyway?”

“He never called himself anything else but _Mangedentelle,”_ Gavroche said impatiently.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow. “An alias, certainly, and it sounds like---“

“Lace-eater, yes,” Eponine finished. “I s’pose you could picture why he got his nickname---it had something to do with how he used to do with ladies he was intending to get more than sous from.”

“When he tried to do the very same thing to you for his pickings, you slashed him across the hand and he called you a vicious cat,” Gavroche supplied.

“I’m not sorry for it,” Eponine retorted.

“That was illustrated well enough,” Enjolras replied in a level tone as he clasped Eponine’s shoulder. “Well then this is certainly a police matter. I do not recall anyone with that sobriquet being tried or released recently,” he said to Gavroche.

“It is, but that’s not what troubles me exactly,” Eponine said. She went back to her desk and picked up the paper she had just set down. “This arrived a few hours ago. It’s a note from Toulouse. There has been an attack, and Citizen Babet is dead and so Citizen Defarge---that’s the Changer to you and me, Gavroche,” she said as she unfolded the missive. “Montparnasse is alive, just so.”

This news stopped Gavroche in his tracks; he had not heard these names in so many years, not since his sister had arranged for these three old friends to live in relative seclusion away from Paris. “Who did it?” he asked.

Eponine swallowed hard. “No one knows.”

Enjolras shook his head as he clasped his wife’s shoulder. “Is Montparnasse expecting any sort of assistance now?”

“No he merely means to inform, and told me to pass the news on to Azelma. You might remember that we all agreed that no hands or sous are to travel between here and their lodgings, not now, not ever,” Eponine replied. “I s’pose I wouldn’t think much about it if not for the news that Gavroche just mentioned about _Mangedentelle_.”

“They worked together, I take that?” Enjolras queried.

“On some matters, not all. He was not the sort who’d get tangled up in the big businesses unless the cut was specifically good---and you know that the criminals haven’t had much to do lately by the Seine,” Eponine explained. “Maybe it’s nothing, Antoine, but the timing does seem odd.”

“Circumstantial,” Enjolras pointed out. “The matter in Toulouse is in the hands of the local police. The Prefecture will certainly settle the recent murder here.”

“Not recent. You should have smelled the place,” Gavroche corrected. “I’ll have some of that bread, cheese, and jam, but none of supper. The Prefecture is a poor mistress.”

Eponine laughed wryly before giving him a serious look. “Please be careful, Gavroche. Whoever did it would be certainly waiting for a move.”

“By grubby hands, not these,” Gavroche said. All the same the weight in his sister’s words was clear; this would not be a simple investigation. ‘ _Who’d go through all the trouble of climbing so high for that sorry picker?’_ he wondered as he followed Eponine and Enjolras out of the study.


	2. Chapter 2

****

**Chapter 2: The Faces at the Prefecture**

The bells at Saint Sulpice were tolling the hour as seven in the evening when Gavroche made his way to the Prefecture’s office at the Rue de Pontoise. ‘ _The Odeon is in order while the Sorbonne has opened the doors of the coop,’_ he thought as he stepped into the Place Saint Michel, which at this hour was bustling with two sorts of passers-by: those strolling and enjoying the pleasures of a twilight promenade, and the regular patrons of the Cafe Musain and other smaller establishments. It was a tableau that would have had most other agents standing still in one place, on the lookout for wayward hands and shifty eyes, however for Gavroche this was the sort of scene he moved best in.  

As he passed by the entrance of the Musain he heard a giggle followed by shushing sounds. “Stop that, Colombe! Everyone is going to look!” a dark haired girl scolded her tall companion.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing---just looking!” the girl named Colombe tittered as she toyed with a frill on the bonnet that covered her curled golden hair. She lowered her gaze quickly as Gavroche passed by. “Good evening Inspector,” she murmured.  

Gavroche merely tipped his hat by way of reply, only to see Colombe turn red and grab onto her friend’s arm. “Is your friend well?” he asked the other young lady.

“Oh I am,” Colombe interrupted. “You look very well, Citizen.”

The shorter girl elbowed her companion. “Oh hush” Her eyes, which were a startling shade of green even in the twilight, narrowed as she looked up at Gavroche. “Your hat is askew and that would look sloppy at the Prefecture,” she pronounced.

“Minette!”

“Why, can’t you see it?”

Gavroche snorted at this backhanded commentary. “It’s worn more easily than your headdresses, that’s all,” he said before tipping his hat again and making a show of donning it so easily before continuing on his way down the street. He clucked his tongue at the rapidly fading chatter of Colombe remonstrating with her companion; if there was one thing he had learned to expect from the ladies of the Latin Quartier, it was in their ability to make such scenes.  

It was another half hour before he arrived at 14 Rue de Pontoise, by which time there were already lamplighters turning up the gas jets on the street lights in the vicinity. This stark illumination was almost blinding in contrast to the flickering glow from the candles in the foyer of the Prefecture’s headquarters, such that Gavroche found himself squinting as he crossed this hall towards where his friend Frassin was nervously chewing on the end of a baguette. “Now have you suddenly turned into a mouse?” Gavroche greeted jovially.

Frassin wiped his mouth. “Inspector Bahorel has some questions about the Rue Bourgogne.”

“Another mouser at play,” Gavroche mused softly as he and Frassin walked down a corridor leading to a side office. The door was already ajar, allowing the two young men to distinctly catch the sound of conversation. “Watch for swells,” he warned Frassin just a moment before the Prefect, Gabriel Delessert, exited the room followed by several other senior officials of the Prefecture.

Delessert suddenly stopped in his tracks and eyed Gavroche and Frassin. “Did you say something, detectives?” he asked sharply.

Gavroche saluted snappily. “It was only a reminder, Citizen,” he said, taking care not to even make eye contact with a now pale looking Frassin.

The Prefect nodded slowly. “They would do well to learn a little more of silence,” he said to a bristly-haired, burly man bringing up the rear of the group. “Make sure of that, Inspector Bahorel.”

“They will, in good time,” Damien Bahorel replied, giving Gavroche a look that would have been stern if not for the conspiratorial quirk to his lip. He waited for Delessert and his companions to leave the corridor before he clapped Gavroche’s back. “He will let that pass. It was only for the sake of his companions, visitors from other prefectures.”

 Frassin dusted some crumbs off his cuffs. “You said you wanted to speak to us?”

Bahorel motioned for the two younger men to follow him into the office that the Prefect had just quitted. He took off his greatcoat and draped it across the back of a large armchair, which he then occupied with great aplomb. He waited as Gavroche and Frassin seated themselves on two wooden stools before he spoke. “I read your preliminary report on the scene, and it’s as true as any sacred oath, I’m certain,” he said to Frassin. He nodded to Gavroche. “Did you note anyone else entering or exiting the building before the alarm was raised?”

“No one, by the front exit. There was no one either on the stairs,” Gavroche replied.

Bahorel’s moustache twitched at this. “The body was undisturbed till you stepped in?”

“I did not note any marks to suggest that he’d been bothered with----unless throwing sheets atop of him counts,” Gavroche answered. In his opinion this was the sloppiest aspect of the entire job, perhaps more of a tactic to scare off the neighbours.

“I figured they’d been used to wipe him up. The body had smudges,” Frassin volunteered.

“No identifying marks as well---yet Gavroche, you signified that you knew him?” Bahorel inquired.

‘ _Knowing of him is more like it,’’_ Gavroche thought. He had only been a small boy, no older than his nephews were now, when he was first pulled into his father’s cons, and then later into more and more complicated schemes on the streets of Paris. To the main players of these crimes, he’d merely been a useful child, not a comrade. “They called him _Mangedentelle,_ the Lace-Eater. His ambuscades were often on ladies in shops and carriages,” he said. “My old man didn’t do much business with him.”

Bahorel nodded slowly. “Was the Invalides part of his usual territory?”

“No, he was rather far out. He always preferred the other bank,” Gavroche said.

“So it is true that he was new to that neighbourhood, or to the house at the very least,” Bahorel commented as he looked through Frassin’s report once more. “There was no grudge or grievance he raised during his tenure in the area.”

“With all due respect, it is not known if any followed him there either,” Gavroche pointed out. “If he was called on any sort of job, shouldn’t the Prefecture have heard of him sooner?”

“That is one of the startling sides to this case,” Bahorel said as he slammed his hands on the desk. “There’s mischief here and there, but his gang’s hold is broken. Most of them such as Gueuleumer, all the Magnons, Mamselle Miss, Deux Millards, and at least one Brujon are behind bars. Your family saw to that, rather thoroughly.”

Frassin scratched his head. “A successor. Some of them have children, protégés---“

“That is the first thing to consider, but I am not inclined to pursue that avenue too relentlessly,” Bahorel said. “There is a new job afoot, and it will be our business to undo that. You gentlemen will go on patrol at the Halle Aux Vins and see if there is anything unusual there. I will have someone else set on the Rue Bourgogne and the Invalides tonight.”

Gavroche and Frassin saluted. “We will leave right away,” Frassin said.

“You will go with Tolbert since that is his usual route; right now though he is in the upstairs office with all the mouldering paperwork,” Bahorel suggested. He motioned for Gavroche to remain standing while Frassin exited the room. “Frassin also said that Laure saw the body. Poor little chick,” he muttered once the other detective closed the door.

“She did not cry or run away,” Gavroche said. All the same he could only imagine the queries that his niece probably had for her parents. “Eponine remembers _Mangedentelle_. I haven’t asked Azelma about him yet.”

The older detective smiled ruefully. “She also stood as lookout for him too?”

“Once till they had a squabble. He tried to cut her of her part of the job, so she gave him this.” Gavroche made a slashing motion across his hand. “The mark is probably mentioned in Frassin’s report.”

“Now there is the story,” Bahorel chortled. “It would appear that he kept out of the business of the counterrevolutionaries on the west bank of the Seine.”

“He was never of that sort of dealing,” Gavroche said. “You could ask Ponine more about it.”

Bahorel shook his head. “I would, but I am not asking her to come forward.” His hand went to a drawer in his desk, where he kept a daguerreotype of his wife Therese and their three sons. “This is too dangerous for civilians, no matter how willing they are to show a bit of red for it.”

“Especially when there are little ones about,” Gavroche said before saluting once more. “Let’s hope nothing goes crowing about,” he added before quitting the room.

Back in the hallway he caught sight of Frassin conversing with their fellow detective Tolbert, a tall, brown haired man who hailed from one of the military families based in the city. His handsome profile took an imperious cast when he caught sight of Gavroche. “You’re placing yourself in too high a place, Thenardier,” he greeted coldly.

“I was only conversing, not squawking,” Gavroche replied, squaring his shoulders. “Good evening to you by the way, Tolbert.”

Tolbert snorted. “Perhaps Inspector Bahorel lets you get away with that but your being too familiar will trip up your tongue---maybe in front of the Prefect. That never looks good.”

“The Inspector asked him to stay for a bit,” Frassin said, placing a hand on Tolbert’s shoulder.

“Precisely the problem,” Tolbert grumbled. He sneered as he looked Gavroche over once more. “You’re wearing those street boots again. How unbecoming.”

“Let’s see what the rain has to say,” Gavroche retorted, making sure to also cast a glance at Tolbert’s newly polished black shoes. As far as he was concerned his heavy brown boots served him well in treading on everything from marble to sewer muck. ‘ _There are also other uses that do not involve stepping,’_ he reminded himself as he and his comrades headed out into the night.

From the Rue de Pontoise it was only a short walk to the wine market and the adjoining promenades of the Jardin Royal des Plantes. As they walked, Frassin pulled Gavroche aside, letting Tolbert walk on ahead. “So is it true what they say about your family—that they once gave the Prefecture a good shakedown because of being falsely charged for murder?”

“That was only my oldest sister and my brother-in-law Enjolras. They weren’t married yet then,” Gavroche said.

Frassin’s eyes widened. “They say they argued their way out of prison.”

“Not together. My sister was taken to Saint Lazare; Enjolras was brought to La Force. That was the message that reached me and my brothers at our old tenement---my friend Navet brought it. So I went out right away and looked for Bahorel---the Inspector to you, but the detective then,” Gavroche explained with a smile. “We had quite a merry chase figuring out who did it---it was the manservant of a terrible jeweller we had all crossed. So we waited at the Cafe du Foy for the culprit to show up since he was known to take a drink or two there.”

“Then what happened?”

“There wasn’t much left to happen. Ponine said they had no evidence to hold them in, Enjolras told the jailers that they were wrong to grab the two of them in the first place. I don’t know who told _them_ to go to the Cafe du Foy. My sister got there first---with the aim to steal a journalist friend of ours so she could tell the proper account of the day.” Gavroche laughed to himself at the memory of that raucous evening. “Meaning she stole him from his drink---the paper men are never good after a few glasses.”

Frassin was quiet. “So everyone was at the cafe---even the man who did it?”

“He’d been taking in the vapours at the back. We missed him till Enjolras came along and spotted him. You should have seen the chairs upset at that,” Gavroche finished triumphantly.

“The Prefecture talks about the first part,” Frassin noted ruefully. He whistled as Tolbert suddenly walked on ahead. “What’s the matter?”

“What you lost him? How can you with those shining buttons of his?” Gavroche asked.

“He’s seen someone.”

“Some hen,” Gavroche muttered, seeing that Tolbert had clearly caught the attention of a young lady standing at the entrance to the wine market. Her face was hidden by her bonnet, which was a pale but tasteful variation on puce. ‘ _Not exactly a grisette,’_ he noted as he watched this stranger make a more restrained nod by way of greeting the officer instead of giggling or moving away fretfully. As he saw Tolbert take this woman’s arm it became clear to him that she was no mere acquaintance. “Good evening Citizenness,” he said clearly over Frassin’s mumbling.

“Citizens, may I introduce Citizenness Minette Debault,” Tolbert said in an officious tone even as he smiled at the lady. “Citizenness, my fellow detectives Thenardier and Frassin.”

Frassin was quicker to shake the lady’s proffered hand while Gavroche merely stood aside to take in the sight of her delicate features, especially her full lips that only seemed more sensuous with her smile. ‘ _What doings for such a minx!’_ he couldn’t help thinking even as he saw her place her free hand on Tolbert’s arm. This newfound demureness was rather unlike how she’d been so blunt with him at the Place Saint-Michel.

 Judging by the surprised amusement in her eyes when she met his gaze, it was clear she remembered this as well. “Are you well, Detective Thenardier?” she asked him lightly.

“Yes I am, Citizenness. I am only surprised that you are in Detective Tolbert’s notice,” Gavroche replied.

“I noticed him first,” Minette said. “I have for a couple of months now.”

“As you can see, she has a good eye,” Tolbert remarked smugly as he adjusted his grip on his sword cane. “You’d better run on home, Minette. We are out on patrol.”

“I wouldn’t _run_ ,” Minette pouted haughtily. “I see you only asked me to meet you here since this is your usual route.”

“It is right next to the gardens,” Tolbert argued.

Frassin snickered and shook his head. “Given this weather perhaps we are best walking you to someplace safe, like your lodgings?” he asked Minette.

“I do not live far off,” Minette said, throwing a cross look at Tolbert.

Tolbert cleared his throat and held out his arm to Minette. “If you will excuse us---we’re only at the Rue des Boulangers,” he said, pointing to a curving side street some paces away. “I’ll see you both in half an hour at the market.”

Gavroche shot an indignant glance at Frassin. “What and he gets to sail off like that?” he hissed.

“We can’t tell Inspector Bahorel a word!” Frassin protested. “Tolbert would never forgive us!”

Gavroche scowled as he watched Tolbert and Minette till they disappeared around the corner of the Rue des Boulangers. “He’s only a booby, that’s what.”

“At least all that brass----“Frassin began before an indignant shriek pierced the evening. “That couldn’t have been----“he muttered as he pulled out a billystick.

“That won’t do!” Gavroche snapped as he now bolted down towards the Rue des Boulangers. Just as he suspected, he found two men laughing to themselves, one of them already holding up Tolbert’s sword cane. A third was searching both Tolbert and Minette; the police officer was insensible in the murk but the woman was feebly trying to fight the man pawing at her skirt. Gavroche motioned for Frassin to hold both ends of his billystick and then pointed at the assailant closest to them. In the meantime he crept up behind the robber holding the sword cane and dealt him a _fouette_ to the back of his head.

 The searcher swore at the sight of his companions suddenly falling to the ground. “Help, police!” he shouted just a moment before Minette kicked him in the shin. Enraged, he grabbed at her again with every intention of pushing her into the dirt, but he stopped when Gavroche and Frassin hauled him to his feet and slammed him against a wall. “Why you---“

“You called, we answer,” Gavroche said with a feral grin as he pointed Tolbert’s sword cane at this robber’s throat. “Empty your pockets.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“Then drop your trousers. I know your tricks.”

The robber scowled as he reached into a hidden compartment and dropped Tolbert’s watch, a few coins, as well as a ladies’ reticule on the ground. “You’re that little dog, aren’t you? The pup from the streets, the innkeeper’s brat---“

“I’d save that for in front of the inspector, if I were you!” Gavroche shouted. He looked to where Frassin was checking on Tolbert and Minette. “How are they?”

“Bruised up,” Frassin replied. He steadied Tolbert with a hand on the shoulder when the latter tried to sit up. “Easy there, my friend. You’ve had it rough.”

Tolbert groaned and blinked at the scene before him. “How did you do that?” he asked, glancing at the sword cane that Gavroche held.

Gavroche smirked as he handed the weapon back to him, all the while keeping one hand around the robber’s collar. “With my boots, if you please.”

“Dirty gutter work,” Tolbert muttered. He looked to Minette, who was cursing as she pocketed her reticule. “Are you hurt?”

“My slippers are torn,” the girl griped. “You shall have to carry me to my door, just there.”

“Oh not as badly as that, Citizenness,” Frassin said. He looked at the criminal struggling in Gavroche’s grip. “Have you brought manacles with you?”

Gavroche nodded, gesturing to his belt. In a few minutes they had chained the three criminals together and secured them to a post. “That will do till we can get help at the Rue de Pontoise.” He looked to Minette. “Do you still need help?”

“Now don’t you touch her!” Tolbert growled.

“You aren’t much help to me at the moment,” Minette retorted. She looked to Gavroche. “It’s only there. Tolbert can watch us.”

Gavroche grinned as he took off his coat and spread it over a puddle. “This, then to the sidewalk.”

“Charming!” Minette huffed as she stepped on the coat and then onto the curb. “You are not a dandy, Citizen Thenardier. I can see that.”

Gavroche scoffed. “There are too many of that sort.”

“Good for you,” Minette said, balling up the coat and tossing it back at him. “Good evening to all of you gentlemen!”

Gavroche could already feel Tolbert’s withering glare even before he could turn his back. “I did not lay a hand on her. You saw that very well.”

Tolbert went very red. “I’d have you for that cheek, Thenardier!”

“He saved your life,” Frassin pointed out. “You’d better run to the Rue de Pontoise and get the wagon. We’ll watch them,” he offered.

‘ _He is merely ending a scene,’_ Gavroche thought as he made a mocking bow to the criminals and then hurried back towards the wine market and the main road. He cast a look over his shoulder at the assailants, wondering if he’d ever seen them before. ‘ _But talk goes further than eyes,’_ he thought as he walked quickly back to the Rue de Pontoise, now with much more to ponder than he cared for.  


	3. Chapter 3

****

**Chapter 3: The Roster of the Shadows**

The Place Mambert, owing to its proximity to the quays as well as to the main roads, was regarded in those days as something of a transit point for many of the residents of the Latin Quartier. ‘ _In short, a perfect place for eyes to roost,’_ Gavroche decided as he opened the shutters of his rented room overlooking this busy street, just in time to catch sight of a procession of covered wagons headed towards the bridges. “More birds to the coops,” he muttered, recognizing the insignia of the Parisian prisons. It had become practice lately to transport prisoners under the cover of night or early dawn, in order to avoid the double indignities of the noontime sun and jeering crowds.

He turned at the sound of a light rapping at the door. “The sun’s risen ahead of you, Navet!” he drawled.

“No, I’ve been ahead of it,” Bernard Avril retorted as he opened the door. Despite the fact that he was blinking away sleep from his eyes, he was still evidently peeved at the use of his old sobriquet. “Your business has kept me late at the printers.”

Gavroche quickly perused the fresh newsletter that his neighbor handed to him.  An article towards the bottom of the front page was titled: ‘ _Foul Play at the Invalides: Burglar Found Dead in Garret’._ He clucked his tongue as he read through the brief but lurid details of the incident. “This did not come from the police report.”  

“Inspector Bahorel wouldn’t let our man have it; he said it was the Prefect’s orders. Someone else sang,” Navet replied cryptically before shaking his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes and patting his well pressed cuffs. “I still cannot believe it though—the Lace Eater was not the sort to get into the big games like Panchaud or even Montparnasse. I had thought he’d cross over a little more quietly since he’s gone straight and all.”

“Going straight is what Ponine and Zelma have been doing. No one’s heeded _Mangedentelle_ , that’s all,” Gavroche said as he set down the newspaper and went to fetch a fresh cravat from a chest of drawers crammed between his bed and a table that served as a desk. In addition to these necessities his lodgings were furnished with two extra chairs, as well as a washstand with a mirror. As simple as these amenities were, Gavroche took great pride in them; these were all his own and he had made sure not to importune any of his siblings for help with initial expenses.

Navet yawned as he occupied one of these extra seats. “We should go for breakfast at your sister’s house again. The concierge has given all the bread to her church friends again.”

Gavroche quickly donned his morning coat but deliberately left it unbuttoned. “That nest is too far. I know just the place though,” he remarked as he grabbed his hat. “There is that place by the quay, where we can get eggs and brioche.”

“I don’t understand why you like brioche so much, especially when there are good croissants to be had,” Navet sniffed.  

“Pooh! The crumbs!” Gavroche chortled as they quit the apartment and headed down to the Quai Montebello, a narrow embankment overlooking the cathedral of Notre Dame. Most boatmen eschewed this pier in favor of the longer Quai de la Tournelle nearby, and so this small stretch of riverbank had been given over to a sort of marketplace. The two young men bought two boiled eggs and four pieces of brioche and then seated themselves on a rail near the bridge leading to the Ile du Palais. The morning was cool yet sunny, but already a stirring breeze from the south threatened to turn the white clouds into ominous thunderheads.

“I saw your colleague Tolbert prancing up the street,” Navet said at length. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “He has a new friend with fine eyes.”

“Her name is Citizenness Debault,” Gavroche remarked.

Navet snorted. “So you have met! What do you make of her?”

“Fine eyes and a sharper tongue,” the detective remarked before taking a bite of brioche. “Now what of your recent appointments?”

“She is not particular---to me or to anyone,” Navet replied morosely. “She does have a cousin coming into town though---“

Gavroche shook his head but before he could take another bite of bread a sharp report cut through the morning air. He immediately caught sight of passers-by fleeing from a ramshackle house on the waterfront, just moments before another gunshot pierced the rising din. He rushed towards this building, just in time to catch sight of a tall, cloaked figure leaping into a carriage. “Stop the fiacre!” he cried but the hackney coach swiftly charged up a side street before disappearing into what appeared to be a carriage-gate. Gavroche dashed forward and pounded on this gate, only to hear the telltale scratch of footsteps making an escape into some back court. Try as he may he could not find this hidden passage, nor could he readily find any help in sight. “What I wouldn’t give for a proper hound and not a _cab_!” he huffed before swiftly walking back to the Quai Montebello.

As he approached the house where he’d begun his futile chase he heard a click from someplace in the shadows. He took a step back and cleared his throat. “That shot will bring the entire Prefecture on you, my friend.”

A choked noise came from the gloom. “What are you doing in that _cognes_ dress, young Thenardier?”

Gavroche was silent for a moment; this voice was not entirely unknown to him, but seven years had done a good deal to roughen it. “You’re not doing much better yourself, little Brujon.”

Out of a doorway stepped a young man of about twenty four years of age. His pallid face would have been handsome if not for a pug nose and some missing teeth. His eyes were red-rimmed and wild, as if he was still in the thick of a long chase. This was not the much feared Brujon of the Seine departments, but rather a young scion of his house. The difference between him and his sire was made even clearer by the uncertain way he held on to his pistol. “Did you pinch him?” he inquired tremulously.

Gavroche shook his head. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know but I’m sure he’s the one who did for the others,” Brujon replied. “He came to my apartment with a gun; I gave him a sounding, that’s all.”

‘ _At least there’s no blood about,’_ Gavroche noted; has there been someone hurt or killed on the premises, there would surely be a larger uproar. “Who are the others?”

Brujon paled even further and moved as if to close the door. “No one that concerns you.”

“ _Mangedentelle_ is dead. I was there when they found his body,” Gavroche cut in. He clucked his tongue when Brujon stopped in his tracks.  “So even if I wasn’t some bobby, I’d like to know.”

“What’s it to you?” Brujon spat. “You’ve gone respectable these past seven years, and you don’t know how it is to live with a _lingre_ at your back.”

“I remember,” Gavroche retorted. “Well if you want to hold on to that peashooter and your knives while you sleep, I shall be on my way.”

Brujon grabbed his arm. “Not if you can save my life, at least. I don’t know what’s gotten the others or why, but I’m not my Pa. I’ve had nothing to do with his pickings ever since he ended up in La Force the second time around. At least he’s safer where is.”

‘ _He’s right about that,’_ Gavroche thought as he looked at Brujon again. He could almost see the runny-nosed boy he’d met time and again during jobs with the older members of that dynasty. “Well you’re going to have to come with me to the Prefecture and talk to Inspector Bahorel. He’s a good chap,” he finally said. “He won’t just tell the Prefect.”

Brujon was quiet for a moment. “What can he do?”

“A great many things,” Gavroche said nonchalantly. “More than your holding a gun by the wrong end anyway.”

Brujon sighed before tucking the gun in his coat and stepping out. “I’m keeping this. Don’t you try anything funny, Thenardier.”

“Gavroche! Where are you?” Navet called from up the street. The newspaperman paused as he saw who Gavroche was talking to. “Was he the one who did it?”

“No he was the one who almost got popped,” Gavroche replied. He nodded to Brujon. “You remember my comrade Navet?”

“It is Citizen Avril,” Navet corrected drily. “Jean Brujon, I presume?”

Brujon managed a smile as he shook Navet’s hand. “You remember.”

“What with your mug, of course!” Navet laughed. He clapped Gavroche on the back as they stepped out into the sunlight of the quay again. “Any chance of seeing you at the Cafe du Foy later?”

“Depending if you have your crows about,” Gavroche said, knowing all too well of the habits of some of Navet’s colleagues. “Give my compliments to Citizenness So-and-So.”

Navet rolled his eyes before tipping his hat. “You stay safe there!” he said before turning towards the bridge leading to the Ile du Palais.

“Now that’s one who’s done finely for himself,” Brujon laughed hollowly. “Are you going to handcuff me or something, Detective?” he asked Gavroche.

“As a joke between friends?” Gavroche quipped as they began walking towards the Rue de Pontoise.  

 Brujon snorted. “I haven’t forgotten that it was your oldest sister who helped put my father in La Force,” he said brusquely. “Your other sister and your _daron_ aren’t much better.”

‘ _It’s just as well that we’re out of the business,’_ Gavroche thought as they reached the Prefecture’s door. He made sure to step in first and wave to the porter, who already had a baton out. “He’s with me.”

The porter lowered his weapon. “You’d better hurry on up, Thenardier. They’ve already left to pursue the lead at the Invalides.”

Gavroche shrugged even as he looked at Brujon, who was mouthing the word ‘biscuit’. “They can always eat the crumbs,” he scoffed before leading his companion to Bahorel’s office and knocking twice.

Bahorel was still clutching a sheaf of paper when he opened the door. “I’m taking over today for the commissaire. You’re late,” he said firmly.

“I had an important meet on the road. There was a shot fired in the area of the Quai Montebello, and directed at this fellow,” Gavroche replied before lightly shoving Brujon forward. “May I introduce Citizen Jean Brujon.”

The older inspector hardly even blinked at the surname. “Thankfully you are unscathed, Citizen,” he said as he shook Brujon’s hand. “Perhaps you can tell me more about it?”

Brujon glanced at Gavroche. “Will he get to listen?”

“Since apparently he has been left behind by today’s expedition, he should,” Bahorel replied, giving Gavroche a stern look before showing him into his office. He motioned for the two young men to take their seats. “So what is this tale?”

“Inspector, I have not been a thief,” Brujon began as he held up a hand. “I’ve been an apprentice at the glazier’s for some years now, and have risen up now to one of the skilled hands. The man who was after me was more likely after my father.”

“Why would you say so?” Bahorel asked.

“I’m a Brujon,” the beleaguered witness said. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Brujon or not, you saw a crime in commission, or rather were the object of it,” Bahorel insisted. “What happened then?”

“I was in my lodgings when he knocked,” Brujon said, sitting back more easily in his chair. “I don’t know what he told the porter downstairs, but he said he had a message for me. I had just enough time to wrestle him before he took his knife to my throat, and that allowed me to get my gun.”He drew the pistol out of his coat and set it on the table. “My knock me down,” he signified.

Bahorel carefully inspected the weapon. “You injured him?”

“I wish I had,” Brujon muttered. “The shot went into the wall. He fled. I was too stunned to move; it was as if all the life had gone out of me. Then I went down to go out by the backdoor since I knew that people in the street had heard it, and that was when Thenardier here found me.”

“You did not get a good look at your....assailant?” Bahorel asked.

“He was in a coat. He was no mere burglar, Citizen, but an assassin,” Brujon said more loudly. “No scars on his face to mark him, that was clear to me.”

Gavroche gritted his teeth at this circumlocution. “You mentioned others?”

“In time,” Bahorel warned. “Did you get any warning prior to this?” he asked Brujon.

“None, I only know. It has happened before,” Brujon said. “You mentioned _Mangedentelle_. Well I know of what happened to him, and I think it was the same knife. _Carmagnolet_ was done for in a ditch this year, and there was the raid on that house in Montmartre, then that business involving Laveuve’s new boys in the Champ de Mars.”

Bahorel nodded gravely. “You have proof that these incidents are related?”

“No one’s saw the hand behind them and lived,” Brujon admitted. “I know though. Why else would they all be happening just now?”

“We’ll examine the facts presently,” Bahorel replied. “Did anyone else see what happened in your lodgings, Citizen Brujon?”

 Brujon shook his head. “The man left and not even Thenardier saw him.” He shifted in his seat. “I will pay dearly for this, I know.”

“It would be worse if you’d kept silent,” Bahorel pointed out. “If you have nothing more to add, then you may go about your business. We’ll definitely make inquiries in your neighbourhood.”

Brujon nodded stiffly before standing up. “Thank you for your help, Inspector,” he said before heading to the door.

“To you as well,” Bahorel called after him. He was quiet for a while as he regarded Gavroche. “An old friend of yours?”

“We only played together once or twice,” Gavroche explained.

“I’ll have someone keep an eye on him for his own safety,” Bahorel said. “The crimes he mentioned were all unsolved mysteries. They all transpired prior to your training here at the Prefecture.”

 _‘Which could not have been too long ago,’_ Gavroche realized. “I will be at the Invalides then,” he said as he got to his feet.  

“No, there is much paperwork that needs to be finished,” Bahorel replied. “I wanted Tolbert on it, but the Prefect said that the Invalides matter was urgent.”

It was all that Gavroche could do not to groan even as he saluted Bahorel and then made his way up to the Prefecture’s archives, which were housed in a room that was dusty in the summer but had a tendency to be musty in the wetter months. Gavroche found a warm corner, which he filled up with the reports and paperwork that Tolbert had not finished the day before. His hands itched as he reviewed all these depositions and accounts; many of these manuscripts were more fitting for a fireplace than an editor’s desk. “Maybe he intends to stock up on kindling,” he laughed to himself after a time as he set aside the reports and got up to peruse some shelves stacked with binders and portfolios of past cases.

Before pulling out a volume he checked his coat for a pocketbook he’d taken to keeping on his person only lately, mainly as a means of tracking expenses. He opened to a blank leaf and brought out the stub of a pencil to make this list and these corresponding notations:

 _Panchaud---_ still in La Force

 _Brujon—_ one in La Force, one by the river, the rest still about

 _Boulatruelle---_ in prison till two years ago, since then unseen

 _Laveuve.—_ boys gone, haven’t heard of the man

 _Finistere.---_ was quiet even before the revolution

 _Homere-Hogu---_ rumored to be in Marseilles, or so he told someone before leaving

 _Mardisoir—_ murdered on the job

 _Depeche---_ left Paris

 _Fauntleroy—_ is he still alive?

 _Glorieux_ \---unseen

 _Barrecarrosse --_ unseen

 _L'Esplanade-du-Sud.---_ left Paris and went Sud

 _Kruideniers--_ unseen

 _Mangedentelle—_ passed

 _Les-pieds-en-l'Air. ---_ last heard of five years ago

 _Deux-Milliards.---_ still in prison

He surveyed this list, constructed from what memory he had of these names from his childhood. “More gaps than teeth!” he muttered before grabbing a portfolio from the shelf. 


	4. Chapter 4

****

**Chapter 4: The Beginnings of Inquests**

It was just as Gavroche was about to reach for a third portfolio in the shelf when he suddenly heard the archives’ door creak open. “Uncle Gavroche!” a high pitched voice chirped.

Gavroche stepped back just in time to catch Laure as she sprang on him. “Now who’s turned you loose, _mome_?” he laughed as he swung her by her arms to set her back on her feet.

The little girl giggled as she regained her footing. “Papa said I could come along with him today,” she replied in a matter of fact tone. “Me and Julien didn’t have to go to school in the morning since our teachers are sick. Maman said that I could go with Papa to his meetings because I can be quieter than Julien and Tienne.” 

Gavroche chuckled at the idea of his brother in law being unable to work for longer than a few minutes at a stretch, owing to this little girl’s endless queries. He quickly picked up his pocketbook and stashed it in his coat pocket upon hearing footsteps in the corridor. “Looks like you’ve misplaced this imp!” he called to Enjolras, who was now swiftly walking to the entrance of the archives room.

Laure ran up to her father and tugged on the hem of his coat. “Uncle Gavroche is here! He could help you look for the papers!” she exclaimed

“He might have work of his own to do,” Enjolras said as he scooped her up. “As for you though, you shouldn’t just run off without telling someone you’re leaving.”

Laure wrinkled her nose. “I don’t see any bad people, Papa.”

“That’s not the only thing to worry about, _petite,”_ Enjolras pointed out. He nodded apologetically to Gavroche. “I hope she was not disturbing you.”

“She’s doing me a good turn,” Gavroche quipped. “What business brings you here?”

“Searching for a certain precedent,” Enjolras answered, stopping to wipe some dust off Laure’s face. “Bahorel gave me permission to go through the archives for a report.”

‘ _No doubt for some case of his,’_ Gavroche thought even as he caught sight of Bahorel hurriedly walking up to this scene. He quickly saluted the senior detective before hurriedly snatching up the papers he had been working on earlier. “Here, saved from being tinder.”

Bahorel snorted as he began perusing the documents. “These are lacking a signatory.”

“Who you have to reel in from the Invalides,” Gavroche remarked gleefully before saluting again and walking off before Bahorel could ask any more questions about the documents. He had only gone a few steps when he suddenly felt a tug on his arm. “Now what are you hopping about?” he asked Laure.

“Papa said I should ask you if you’re busy,” Laure chirped as she bounced up and down. “You’re just walking. I want to see this place.”

“You be careful there little mouse, you might poke into a hole that’s too large,” Gavroche warned. Although he considered his fellow agents as far better than most scoundrels, he was still aware of the impression their manners could make on little Laure.  “I’m sure you’ve had some grub already, but there’s a place with good cakes nearby, just round the corner,” he suggested.

“You can have just one, Laure. It’s almost the hour for lunch,” Enjolras called from inside the archives room. “I’ll see you both there in a while.”

Laure grinned as she began skipping in an attempt to keep up with Gavroche. “Papa didn’t say how _big_ the cake could be,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“What you’ll need next is a giant to split the cake with,” Gavroche remarked as they headed downstairs and out onto the street. They headed down to the corner of the Rue de Pontoise and the Rue Saint Victor, where there was a small confectioner’s shop that always displayed delicately iced cakes and pastries in the window. On this day the baker had chosen to make a tower of puffs filled with cream and garnished with stripes of fruit glazes. Gavroche laughed when he saw his niece’s eyes go wide at the sight. “Four or five of those should count for one cake,” he said.

Laure put her fists together, as if making some sort of estimation. “Can I have the ones covered in oranges?” she asked. “I don’t like the red ones; they might be raspberries.”

“Picky!” Gavroche said. Yet just as he was about to step into the shop he noticed a lady about to step into the Rue de Pontoise. He tipped his hat to her. “Good day to you Citizenness Debault.”

Minette stopped in her tracks, nearly dropping her shawl in the process. “To you to Citizen...Thenardier, isn’t it?” she asked with a bemused, slightly embarrassed smile.

“You have named me well,” Gavroche replied with a grin. “This isn’t a place for strolling.”

“It’s a matter of taste,” Minette said. Her voice was velvety but a little soft, as if she was somewhat tired from the previous evening. “Is Citizen Tolbert at the Prefecture right now?” she asked in a lower tone.

“He is out on an assignment,” Gavroche answered. “Who knows when he’ll be back?”

The lady sighed until she noticed Laure hopping impatiently beside Gavroche. “Now what is your name, little girl?” she cooed.

“I’m Laure,” the child replied with a smile. “Are you just Citizenness Debault?”

“Some people call me Minette,” the woman replied candidly. “How old are you?”

“I turned six last summer,” Laure said proudly. “How do you know my Uncle Gavroche?”

Minette’s eyes widened with surprise as color flooded her cheeks. “Your uncle? How so---”

“Laure is the oldest child of my oldest sister,” Gavroche managed to say, even if he could not quite meet the discomfited young woman’s eyes. “I’m only old enough to be Laure’s eldest brother.”

“That would be quite a stretch,” Minette laughed as she looked at Laure again. “She looks so much like you though---but I see it now. Your sister is Citizenness Enjolras.”

‘ _It sounds so dignified but she’s always going to be Ponine to a lot of us,’_ Gavroche thought with a mirthful smile. “Nothing is preventing you from stepping in with us to get some sweets,” he said after a few moments.

Minette peered curiously at the shop display. “If you mean to get those bits of air, then you’re better off getting fruit tarts or something with more filling. That pastry is mostly spun sugar,” she pronounced after a few moments.

Laure looked up; clearly catching Minette’s disapproving tone. “I told Papa I was getting cake, not those,” she finally said. “That might be nicer.”

“Cake? What do you mean?” Minette asked.

“I saw the baker bringing out some when we were walking up here,” Laure said thoughtfully. “They smelled really good too.”

Minette chuckled as she patted the top of Laure’s head. “Then I shan’t say anything if your uncle wants to get you those.”

Laure smiled widely. “You’re a pretty lady, and really nice. My uncle should like you.”

Gavroche froze on hearing Minette laugh at this observation. “Now that’s a fancy thought!” he muttered as he opened the patisserie door and motioned for Minette and Laure to step in. Yet before he could set one foot across the threshold he caught sight of a fiacre swiftly turning into the Rue de Pontoise; in another moment he realized that Tolbert and Frassin were in the carriage, deep in discussion. ‘ _They’ve found some picking, for certain,’_ he thought as he rushed into the shop and over to where Minette was helping Laure pick out a small strawberry cake. “Come now, we have to hurry!”

Minette nearly dropped her purse on seeing Gavroche’s troubled mien. “Now what’s the matter?”

“Your friend,” Gavroche answered before quickly putting several sous down on the counter. “The raspberry pastry for me, and also wrap up that one with citrons, if you please,” he said to the surprised baker at the counter. He looked to Minette. “Anything you would like?”

“I’ve already paid for it,” the woman replied, gesturing to another wrapped cake on the counter. “It’s to share, if you must ask.”

‘ _Not with me though,’_ Gavroche could not help thinking even as he gathered up his purchases. In a few minutes they were back at the Prefecture’s headquarters, in time to see Tolbert at the door, regaling a whole circle of agents with a story. “Good day Citizen Roadblock!” Gavroche greeted.

Tolbert’s eyes narrowed for a moment with fury before an expression of pure scorn passed across his face. “You have fallen far behind, Thenardier. We almost have our man in the Invalides case.”

“What and you still cannot get your foot in the door!” Gavroche retorted, gesturing to the threshold.

Tolbert gritted his teeth at the snickers that rippled throughout his audience, but he squared his shoulders and went over to Minette. “Do you need anything, Citizenness?” he asked.

Minette put one hand akimbo. “Is that any sort of proper greeting, Citizen Tolbert?”

“As you can see, I am at work, Citizenness Debault,” Tolbert said, making a bow.

Minette swatted his arm. “As a town crier? Has the Prefecture got nothing better for its agents to do?”

Gavroche laughed even as he ushered Laure past this confusion and into the building. “There goes the luncheon!” he said to himself before nodding to Enjolras, who was headed down the stairs. “The ink clearly has not stuck to you,” he said.

“The news has,” Enjolras replied ruefully. He smiled however when he made eye contact with his child. “Did you get what you wanted?”

Laure nodded happily as she wiped some icing off her face. “It’s strawberry, Papa. Did you know that Uncle Gavroche also met a nice lady----“

“She is an acquaintance,” Gavroche cut in. He handed the citron cake to Enjolras. “A splash of flour for the end of summer. You won’t find any other in Paris.”

“Thank you for this,” Enjolras said as he put the wrapped cake in his satchel. He clapped Gavroche’s back. “You’re needed at the commissaire’s office, now,” he added in an undertone.

Gavroche just managed to keep a straight face as he walked to the commissaire’s office. The office door was locked, prompting him to knock twice. “Here I am,” he greeted when Bahorel opened the door.

Bahorel signed for him to enter and shut the door. “First off, the news. You may have heard that our perpetrator at the Invalides is a prowler, who had been observing his victim. He will be caught shortly since traces of him were seen too in the Rue de Cygnes.”

“That’s good for Tolbert,” Gavroche muttered in a surly tone.  

“Let him dine on that. As for us though, we have another problem.” Bahorel brought out a newspaper and handed it to Gavroche. “You brought me a Brujon this morning. Now I bring you this.”

Gavroche only had to find the word _Toulouse_ in the article for him to know the story it told. Nevertheless he found himself riveted by the lurid details of what seemed to be a well planned attack on a cottage at the outskirts of the town. ‘ _No wonder that only Montparnasse escaped with his life,’_ he thought as he came across a line about the wounds found on Babet and Defarge. “What do the police in Toulouse say?” he asked.

“They are still poking about,” Bahorel said, wiggling his fingers on the tabletop akin to the manner of a snail. “The attack was not a burglary since the assailant left their possessions untouched.”

‘ _Not that they would have many pickings since they aren’t supposed to be reaching about,’_ Gavroche thought. “Where is Montparnasse?”

“Alive---that much we know from the letter to your sister. Enjolras mentioned the missive sent to the Rue Guisarde yesterday,” Bahorel replied. He took a deep breath as he sat down. “There have been no other attacks of a similar nature in Toulouse. They were specifically hunted; perhaps by someone from outside of the town.”

“Someone in Paris, or rather Pantin,” Gavroche muttered. “It’s a long way to go.”

Bahorel nodded slowly. “How closely did young Brujon’s father work with them?”

“He could be counted on, more than _Mangedentelle_.” The younger detective swallowed hard on seeing the pensive look crossing Bahorel’s face. “Something’s a trouble in the belfry?”

“Our present network of informants is hardly concerned with this old web.” Bahorel got to his feet and went to a map that was taped on the wall. “The departments of the Seine have been rather tranquil. Our inquiry would be best begun in the prisons.”

 “Who do we have in the keeps?”

 “A heap of Magnons, then the prowlers Panchaud, Deux-Millards, and the giant Gueuleumer,” Bahorel jabbed his thumb on the location of La Force and another finger on Saint-Lazare.  “Some of the women have been released, but I hardly doubt they would be in active commission.”

Gavroche scoffed at this. “Hopefully they haven’t mouldered away between the stones.”

“That will be your task to find out.” The older inspector handed a sealed note to Gavroche. “This is your passport into La Force. The warden will expect you to present this. Make sure you talk to the prisoners alone, and not in concert.”

 “What of young Brujon?” Gavroche asked.

“I’ve sent Frassin to watch him,” Bahorel replied. He clasped Gavroche’s arm. “You’re the only man we have here who can see through this mire. We’re counting on you for this.”

The young man took a deep breath, now feeling the weight of his pocketbook in his coat. ‘ _No need to say what’s between my ears just yet,’_ he decided after a moment before making a snappy salute. “You’ll have your answer in a blink, Citizen.”


	5. Chapter 5

****

**Chapter 5: Of Old Haunts**

The last time Gavroche had been in the vicinity of La Force prison he had been shimmying up a flue just to carry a rope to a man perched on the wall. ‘ _The old gent only had crumbs for thanks though,’_ he recalled wryly as he wound his scarf more tightly around his neck. He could still see before him his father’s sharp, leering visage; the sight had only inspired surprise in him that night and stilled all familiar greetings. He whistled as he looked around the prison courtyard, which was empty owing to the chill in the weather; only a few inmates looked out from behind shutters or spat at him as they trudged along high walkways. From where he stood he could just catch sight of the precarious passageway and the narrow awning where his father would have been trapped if not for Gavroche’s ability to scale a wall, all the while remaining unseen. Now under the broad daylight that narrow pass in the wall seemed nigh impossible to him, even if he got rid of his shirt, his pantaloons, and his shoes. 

“Detective Thenardier, the prisoner will see you now,” a warden called to him. He gave Gavroche an ingratiating smile as the latter approached. “You might see that we’ve been making renovations to the facilities, especially the New Building.” He gestured to a tall edifice that was starting to turn gray despite a recent coat of whitewash. “We have reinforced the walls with steel, so now we have nothing to fear from escape attempts.”

“Maybe someone should invent a wall against mutterings,” Gavroche remarked as he followed the warden up a winding wooden staircase that led to a sort of mezzanine that looked out onto the yard. At the far end of this room, away from the window, sat a man with his wrists manacled before him. He was bareheaded and clad in a blue woollen smock and rough trousers. His lean face would have had an intelligent, philosophical mien in another light, but only appeared surly in the dim lamplight.

The prisoner looked up quickly but his surprised expression soon turned querulous. “Only you’d come visiting like this, little Thenardier,” he said softly. “What has the Prefecture sent you here for?”

“Just for some questions,” Gavroche replied as he stood in front of Brujon. Up close the contrast between this man and the tall prowler in Gavroche’s memory only seemed more ludicrous until he saw the menace in Brujon’s face. He cracked his knuckles before speaking again. “I’m also here because of your boy, Jean. He almost got picked off.”

The older Brujon bolted to his feet. “My Jean? What is he doing in Paris?” He scowled at the rattling of the manacles on his arms. “I asked his mother to bring him away from here, in my last---“He trailed off before shaking his head. “No, I am not telling you.”

“You sent a _postillon_ ,” Gavroche said. “I still remember that trick of course. We have our own version of it out in the air.”

Brujon laughed humourlessly. “Hasn’t your family done enough? Your father doesn’t know the business; all he does is make himself fat in high places. And your sisters!” He rattled the manacles again. “If Eponine had kept her mouth shut, then I wouldn’t be in this hole again!”

‘ _She wasn’t the only one who sang,’_ Gavroche thought even as he stood his ground. He could still recall all too well how many a job ended with those who were caught pointing fingers at the others scampering away. “If you sent her a postillon I’m sure she’d be happy to reply,” he said with a grin.   

Brujon snorted. “Like a lady would. She did it for the little brats, the Magnon boys---or rather your father’s boys. The bigger one is a dead ringer for him.”

Gavroche fought to keep a straight face at the mention of this old secret now rendered useless by time. “I hope it ends there, for the sake of his mug.”

“Still the same cheeky imp,” Brujon said bemusedly. “That famous Thenardier tongue, gone fine no doubt from living with such grand folk. I think you could talk old Delessert into giving me something more than this yard to trot in?”

‘ _It’s not your place to make promises,’_ Gavroche reminded himself even as he shrugged. . “I’m only a flea in the Prefect’s ear, but I can bite whoever has been picking off people like _Mangedentelle_ , Babet, and the Changer.” He saw Brujon pale at the mention of these names, only to shake his head. “Someone else sang, which was why you tried sending the postillon.”

“No one sang. There was no need to,” Brujon retorted. “You’re not the first person to go poking about here, asking me to hand over my old comrades.”

The word ‘comrades’ had Gavroche smiling wistfully, if only for the other contexts he’d once heard it in. “If you have them in hand---my hand, I could get the postillons to them, and ask them to remove,” he suggested. “The old arrangement.”   

“What, you?”

“I don’t charge for post.”

Brujon chewed on the inside of his cheek. “You’re lucky it’s me here; Panchaud would knock you flat, and I can imagine what the Magnons would gladly do to your innards,” he growled. “The young chief, Montparnasse, is still alive?”

 “He’s well kept.”

Brujon picked at the chain that held his manacles together. “The last person whose postillon came through was Boulatruelle. He has an address at the Barriere de la Villette. Glorieux may still be at the area of the Temple; I do not need to tell you how to get there,” he said in a low voice. “Fauntleroy and Barrecrosse are still about; Barrecrosse has friends at the Barriere du Maine.”

“What about the others?”

“Do you think I’d be sitting here if I knew?”

Gavroche snorted at this sudden indignant outburst. “Depends what’s picked them first. Should I pass on a message to Jean?”

Brujon was quiet for a few long moments. “He should keep his head low---and not send a postillon back here,” he said in a gravelly tone. He pressed his manacled hands to his lips and whistled. “That is all you can press out of me, Thenardier.”

 The detective clucked his tongue, even if he knew that the interview was already over. He nodded to the warden who was watching as four guards walked Brujon out of the room. “What of the other inmates in his gang?” Gavroche asked.

The warden shook his head. “Gueueleumer is in infirmary, Panchaud knows nothing he says. Magnon will always be in solitary.”

“Well I’ll come around knocking then,” Gavroche replied as he donned his hat again and turned to leave. He blinked as he stepped back out into the sunlit street, just in time to hear the distant tolling of the bells at the Church of St. Etienne. “Why it’s only three in the afternoon; there is still time for a detour!” he said to himself. He whistled a ditty as he set his feet towards the Rue Saint Louis, where he soon found an omnibus headed for the neighbourhood of the Temple.

The environs of the Temple were a far cry from the shadowy lair that Gavroche had known in his childhood; the various agencies of public works had torn down many of the old meeting places and caches favoured by the unscrupulous. However these developments had failed to abolish the bazaar of second-hand goods, such that the area from the Boulevard du Temple all the way up to the gate of Les Madelonntes was rife with nooks and crannies housing dealers and hawkers of all sorts. Gavroche made sure to button his coat over his insignia before alighting from the omnibus and walking down to the cracked edifice that gave the fauborg its name.

Despite his keeping his head low, some of the vendors only nodded to him, others hurriedly walked past him, while a few watched him warily from stairways and windows. At last a man with a face marred by pockmarks hissed at Gavroche. “I’ve got pinchers for you, young man.” He ambled off a stoop and tugged on Gavroche’s arm. “Or do you call them _lingres_?”

“Are they better than toad-stickers?” Gavroche asked, raising the brim of his hat.

The hawker burst out laughing. “The very best---and fine enough to give the bobbies a run at the very sight of them!”

Suddenly a yell followed the telltale footsteps and blows of a scuffle came from a nearby house. “Don’t let this murderer get away!” an old woman screeched as she grabbed the arm of a bedraggled man who was trying to flee into an alley.

“I told you I didn’t do it! Where did you get---“ this man roared before six other toughs rushed up, wrestling him away from the old woman’s grip and pinning him up against a wall. “Someone help me!”

Gavroche sprinted to this scene and pulled one of the burly men off his victim. “What’s the ruckus all about now?”

“What are you, one of the police?” another one of these men sneered as he shoved Gavroche away. “Can’t you see this fellow is a murderer?”

Gavroche shoved his way forward once more to get a look at the beleaguered man’s face. Despite the bruises and scratches marring this visage he had a good view of terrified grey eyes and a once-broken nose, features that were still somewhat familiar to him. “What are they squawking about now, Glorieux?” he asked.

The battered man started at this old moniker. “Who of you called me that?”

“I did. That name is hard to shake,” Gavroche replied. ‘ _A man who’s survived La Force too, only to come to this?’_ he wondered as he surveyed this unfortunate. His dark hair was long and unwashed, his face was haggard and pale, as if sleep had deserted him, and his blouse was torn in some places. Altogether he was the picture of misery, but of the sort brought about by flight as opposed to privations.

Glorieux’s eyes widened with recognition. “You’re the _tapissier’s_ boy!” He clutched at Gavroche’s knees.  “You know me, don’t you? You know I could never kill a man, or lady! You have to get them to believe me or I’ll be killed.”

“Liar! That lady lying in there!” the old woman on the porch screamed. “She begged and you did for her, you monster!”

Glorieux swore and lunged at her, but he was held fast by the other bystanders. “I’d rather that he had done for me instead, and you know it!”

By this time Gavroche saw another patrolling officer approaching this scene, so he saluted this newcomer before slipping into the darkened house. Almost instantly he caught a whiff of the metallic tang of blood, leading him to a woman lying motionless in a far off corner behind a broken chair. On closer inspection he realized that the dead woman had clasped a bundle to her breast, as if trying to shield it from some blow. Gavroche dropped to his knees to get a better look, only to have his fingers come away stained with red when he shifted the blankets wrapping up the child. “ _Mamselle Miss and a mome_?’ he thought with disbelief as he looked at the woman, noting the wide brow, button nose, and long chin that were somewhat evident too in the child’s face.  

A draft of wind coursed through the room, calling his attention to a wooden staircase a few paces off. Gavroche quietly tiptoed upstairs and found himself in a chamber furnished solely with two mattresses and a chest that doubled as a sort of desk, judging by the papers and wax still scattered on the top. He ventured to this desk and found among the blank leaves a paper covered with a scrawl in English, clearly set out to dry. ‘ _Glorieux could not write,’_ he told himself as he stashed the note in his waistcoat pocket before heading back outside.

“No one is alive,” he told the constable who had collared Glorieux. “We’re too late.”

Glorieux looked down despondently. “I already knew that. I was getting help, believe me.”

“Then you will have it,” Gavroche said, meeting this man’s gaze. “Somehow---but you have to go with them. You understand?”

“I’m not getting arrested again!” Glorieux howled. “Don’t bring me back to La Force!”

‘ _He might be safer there.’_ Gavroche thought even as he nodded to his fellow constable. “Bring him in. The senior inspectors will question him,” he said quickly.

Glorieux’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “You---I thought you would help---you brat, you cheat----“

“Keep him quiet, he might wake the neighbourhood,” Gavroche added. ‘ _For all I know whoever did this might still be about,’_ he realized as he led a now weeping Glorieux off to a fiacre. However instead of getting in he merely clapped the apprehending constable on the arm. “I’ll be there after another errand. They can have the first course without me,” he instructed. Much to his relief the other policeman did not ask any questions but merely ordered the fiacre driver to hurry to the Rue de Pontoise. He waited only a moment before he crossed the street in order to catch an omnibus that would take him back down the Rue du Temple, towards the Hotel de Ville and the Pont d’Arcole. From here he had to walk across the Ile du Palais and cross at the Pont Saint Michel. From here he caught another omnibus that brought him towards the Rue du Four, and eventually the neighbourhood of the Marche Saint Germain.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen by the time he caught sight of the ninth house at the Rue Guisarde. He was fairly certain that by now he could have found his way here even blindfolded, all the way to letting himself past the iron gate. He walked up to the house, banged the heavy knocker twice and then took a deep breath as the door opened a crack. “I’m here for the food,” he greeted.

“Too bad, I’ve raided the cupboards first!” his youngest brother Jacques replied as he pounded Gavroche’s hand with his fist. “What’s brought you here?”

“I need to speak with Ponine about something,” Gavroche replied. He smirked as he looked his sibling over, taking in the sight of sleeves and trouser hems that had obviously just been let out. “What’s this, you’ve grown into a reed?”

“I could see over everything now and you know it!” Jacques retorted as he drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders.

“Yes, and you’ll trip over your plodders just yet,” Gavroche said, pointing to Jacques’ still oversized feet.

Jacques stuck out his tongue. “It only means I have some way to go. Tell him that, Neville,” he said, looking now to another boy seated on the stairs, quite failing to hide his grin behind the heavy book on his lap.

Neville clucked his tongue as he rested his elbows on the tome. “Seeing over things doesn’t mean knowing how to poke into them properly,” he said sagely.

Jacques glared at him. “I don’t have to go standing on books to reach things!”

“I know how to make a _ladder_ to fix that problem,” Neville retorted.

“Oh is that so?” Eponine chimed in rather crossly from the study, from where she soon emerged carrying her youngest child Etienne.  “Now that you three are so tall I don’t have to reach that far to pinch you all by your ears!”

Gavroche merely shrugged while Neville and Jacques groaned. “I’m here for the food, Ponine,” he greeted. “You feed these _momes_ too much.”

“Is that so?” Eponine asked as she continued to bounce a still restless Etienne in her arms. She sighed as the baby whimpered and squirmed further into the crook of her elbow. “There, there, you’ve just had a long day, Tienne,” she crooned.

Gavroche lowered his eyes, unable to look at his sister now that the memory of that dark room at the Temple threatened to swallow his vision. It was just as well that he felt a sharp tug on his coattails. “Hello there Julien,” he greeted his oldest nephew.

Julien hugged Gavroche around his legs. “You’re home! You eat here?”

Gavroche felt a lump rise in his throat at the mention of the word ‘home’. ‘ _Just say it, and of course you can move back here in a heartbeat,’_ he thought. Yet there was a very important reason aside from convenience that had him stilling this idea on his lips. “I’m only visiting,” he said as he crouched to look at the little boy. “I just need to ask your Maman about something.”

“You’re asking me and not Antoine?” Eponine teased.

“With Laure on his hands all day, he’s bound to have enough of questions,” Gavroche drawled. “Besides it’s something to do with words.”

“Oh. I s’pose you should give me a minute though,” Eponine replied before rubbing little Etienne’s back to soothe him. The youngster let out a burp before snuggling more contentedly against his mother. “That was all you needed, hmm?”

Julien tugged on Eponine’s hand. “Maman, I’m hungry.”  

“I’ll get started with dinner soon too---but you may have just _one_ bit of candied peel in the jar if you like,” Eponine said. She chuckled as Julien scooted off to the kitchen, followed shortly by Jacques and Neville. “My mother in law sent too much of those. Antoine has been getting rid of them by giving them away to his colleagues.”

Gavroche snickered at the mental image of Enjolras trying to palm off candied citrons onto a gruff lawyer. He followed Eponine into the study room and took a seat as she settled Etienne into a large wicker basket cushioned by several quilts. “It’s about an English rag I found,” he explained as Eponine pulled up her usual chair to her desk.

“You could have sent it to the office at the Rue des Macons or to another translator.”

“It’s not ordinary business, Ponine.”

The young woman cautiously took the letter that Gavroche handed over and spread the missive out onto the tabletop. “It’s to someone in Dover, asking for---- _what is this?”_ She frowned as she looked up from the letter. “Where did you get it?”

“A house” Gavroche said as he put his hands on his lap.

“What sort of house?” Eponine demanded. She read through more of the missive and as she did so her dark eyes narrowed. “I know this postillon. Mamselle Miss. She’s gone, isn’t she? She would never have given you this letter otherwise.”

“She and her little boy, with Glorieux.”

“You don’t mean---“

“He didn’t kill her,” Gavroche finished. “He told me as much and I remember something of him.”

“So you’re trying to prove him innocent...no, I know you, Gavroche, and it’s never as simple as that,” Eponine said. She bit her lip as she patted the paper again. “It’s a terrible letter, but I s’pose you should know it. Everything all makes sense now--- _Mangedentelle_ , Babet, the Changer, Montparnasse and why there was some pinching.”

“What do you mean?” Gavroche asked.

“I’ll read it out to you straight,” Eponine said as she picked up the letter. ‘ _My dear friend, I thank you for replying so quickly in my hour of need. Paris, as lovely as a city as it always been, has now become untenable. Glorieux---I will name him soon enough, I promise---wants nothing more than to spirit me and the boy to safety at the soonest possible time. We will not bring anyone else with us, for it is too dangerous. Nevertheless I am so grieved that I must leave so many friends behind at the mercy of this murderer. What grudge he holds, I am not sure, but I fear he is killing us all for merely existing. The only tie that binds us is that of a past I have long left behind. How it has come to light, I do not know.”_

_“I will arrange that we will be at Calais by the end of the week. Please keep this matter away from your constables; I fear that this assassin has friends in high places and will stop at nothing to extract those who have escaped to your friendly shore.”_

_“Your suffering friend_

_Victoria Hastings”_

Eponine’s eyes were serious as she folded up the letter. “Where is Glorieux?”

“In hand, at the Prefecture.”

“Keep him there. He might be the only man you have to help you.”

Gavroche got to his feet as he pocketed the missive. “You’d better keep your eyes open too, Ponine. He has a long hand.”

“And I know my way about,” Eponine replied. “You’d better run back to the Prefecture straight away. I’m sure Bahorel, or someone else, will be missing you.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Troubles of Informants**

Despite all attempts at haste and the timely provision of a fiacre, darkness had already fallen fast by the time Gavroche returned to the Rue de Pontoise. The foyer of the Prefecture’s headquarters was busy with agents preparing for the night patrols as well as some others who’d made a few early arrests. In the middle of this hustle and bustle Gavroche espied another detective waving to him. “You’re needed at the Prefect’s office,” this man said to him.

‘ _Probably about Glorieux’s squawking,’_ Gavroche decided as he headed upstairs. En route he espied Tolbert and Minette ducking into a corner near the stairs, only to be catcalled by several agents standing around nearby. “There’ll be more of a tale there later,” Gavroche laughed to himself before knocking on the door of Delessert’s office.   

 “Enter,” Delessert growled from inside the room. The Prefect set aside some letters he’d been reading before levelling a reproving look at the younger detective. “I have just been informed that you have been absent without leave. Instead of returning directly here after making your arrest, you absconded once again for parts unknown.”

“It was to clarify evidence concerning the investigation,” Gavroche answered quickly. He could just hear the crinkling of the stolen letter as well as its translation in his waistcoat pocket, and he couldn’t help but wonder if Delessert could detect this sound as well. “I had to set something straight about the victim’s connections.”

“An English resident by the name of Victoria Hastings, known to be living with Aimery Jourdain---or better known as Glorieux. Both of them were imprisoned in 1832 and 1830, respectively, and subsequently released on parole. They are certainly known to the Prefecture,” Delessert said in a level tone as he put his hands on the desk. “If you were investigating, you were out of bounds as you had duties to discharge with regard to your prisoner.”

 “And what if there was important evidence---“

“That will remain to be decided, Detective Thenardier,” Delessert interrupted. “In any other circumstances you would be considered a meddler and a busybody, and a hindrance to the exercise of the law. This is not something I will tolerate within my Prefecture. Are we clear?”

It was all that Gavroche could do to keep a straight face at the gall in the Prefect’s tone. “Understood, Citizen,” he said with a salute.

Delessert looked at him for a long moment, as if weighing some matter on his mind. “Consider this your first and final reprimand. This is your first case with the Prefecture, and some lapses are to be expected. Next time however I will not be so tolerant---“he began before another knock sounded on the door. “What is it?”

“It’s about Tolbert, Citizen,” a gruff voice replied.

Delessert sighed deeply. “Show him in.” He shook his head as he looked at Gavroche. “Do not let me catch you with such imprudence. Having women in these premises, even on official business, is nothing but courting trouble.”

Gavroche only saluted once more by way of reply before quitting the room. As he walked down the corridor he caught sight of Tolbert shaking his head, his jaw set as he walked away from Minette. As for the woman she was quickly fanning herself, perhaps to draw attention away from her furrowed brow and pursed lips. Upon seeing Gavroche she merely shook her head before mumbling some excuse and stalking off down the hallway. “Citizenness Debault---“ he called.

“I’d stay out of that merry scene if I were you,” Bahorel warned as he emerged from a nearby office. His usually cheery face was taut and grim. “I am certain you were at least on this side of the Seine,” he added in an undertone.

Gavroche nodded slightly. “I visited the Rue Guisarde, to set a paper straight.”

Bahorel’s eyes narrowed. “A paper that you got from the crime scene, I am certain?” He gritted his teeth when Gavroche did not make an immediate reply. “You cannot simply get civilians involved in this! What if this suspect decides to go after your siblings, or heaven forbid, your nephews or Laure?”

“Ponine and Enjolras were the ones who offered to help first,” Gavroche argued. “They know how to be careful about these things.”

“All the same you should have cleared this move with the Prefecture before getting your sister involved,” Bahorel chided. “Have you got a copy of her translation of the letter?”

Gavroche reluctantly handed over the folded papers.  “Food for moths now?”

“I’ll see to it that it does not go that way,” Bahorel assured him. He rubbed his temples as he regarded Gavroche again. “Have you any word from Frassin?”

“None,” Gavroche answered. Now that he thought about it he had not heard any word from his friend since much earlier in the day. “Perhaps I should check at the Quai de Montebello.”

“He will not be there; I advised young Jean Brujon to remove, and Frassin will be watching him from afar.” He clapped Gavroche’s shoulder. “For now, you have the evening off. Drink to the fact that Delessert was not too harsh on you. There will be much to do in the morning aside from questioning your friend Glorieux.”

“Here, and not in La Force?”

“He’s only here for questioning. You believe him to be innocent, so he said?”

Gavroche had to hide his smile at the stern yet knowing tone in Bahorel’s voice. He saluted before hurrying downstairs to the small yard at the back of the building, where the agents often gathered to eat, spar, and exchange news and gossip. Even before he stepped outside he could already hear the raucous cheering that usually signalled the end of a match.

“There you are Thenardier,” one of the older agents greeted. “Scuttlebutt has it that you’re another brawler too.”

“With my fists or with my feet?” Gavroche asked before he was suddenly shoved into the middle of the circle. He had just enough time to dodge a large fist aimed for his jaw, giving him barely a second to counter with a jab to his opponent’s nose. The burlier agent facing off against Gavroche growled before rushing at him but Gavroche sprang forward with a flurry of punches at his face before swiftly taking his opponent’s keens out from behind him. The other agent went down with a yell but grabbed at Gavroche’s arm to pull him to the ground as well.

“That’s a draw!” the older agent yelled before Gavroche could get to his feet. He extended his hands to help up both opponents. “Now where did you learn to do such a thing?” he asked Gavroche.

Gavroche brushed some dust off his coat. “At home,” he replied nonchalantly.

“From Citizen Enjolras, I am certain,” the older constable remarked.

“My sister helped a bit too,” Gavroche added, smirking at the surprised expressions of his comrades. ‘ _Ponine could deal most of these gents a fouette before they could even get their boots together,’_ he thought, rubbing his jaw right where he’d been dealt a blow the very first time he’d gone sparring. It was then that he caught sight of Bahorel talking furtively with a messenger in the hall. Something about the older detective’s countenance had Gavroche quitting the practice ring and coming forward. “What has the crow brought?” he asked in an undertone.

“We’re needed at Picpus,” Bahorel said in an undertone. “Frassin is at the Combeferres’.”

Gavroche’s gut twisted at the mention of his colleague being at the home of a physician. “What happened to Brujon?”

Bahorel shook his head. “It would appear they were ambushed, judging by this note from Combeferre. Frassin is lucky to live to tell the tale.”

‘ _Someone has a hand of lightning,’_ Gavroche thought as he followed Bahorel out to the street and hailed a fiacre. Not even Montparnasse at his most desperate and brazen had taken so many lives in such a short span of time. This very disquieting thought was enough to still Gavroche’s tongue from all chatter throughout the entire trip to the Quai d’ Austerlitz, then across to the neighbourhood of the Rue de Bercy, a little south of the Faubourg Saint Antoine.

Twenty years ago this quarter had been known as Picpus, and had lingered so even throughout the early days of the 1830s. Nowadays the name Picpus was no more and the area was referred to simply as “Bercy”. This name had also been bestowed on the railway station being constructed in this vicinity, near the entrance to the Bercy road leading out of Paris. The old houses in this vicinity were giving way to residences refurbished in the ‘classic Greek’ style, complete with marble columns set up in gardens of low trimmed hedges. On the whole it made the neighbourhood seem far less forbidding, if one could ignore the dismal tolling of the bells from the still extant convent of the Bernardines.

Gavroche and Bahorel found the windows shuttered at the Combeferre house, but light could still be seen in little points through the slats. “There’s discretion for us,” Bahorel noted as he rang the bell near the doorway. “We got Combeferre’s message, my dear Claudine,” he greeted the woman who opened the door a crack.

“How very timely, Bahorel,” Claudine Andreas-Combeferre greeted amiably. As usual she wore her chestnut hair pinned away from her face but covered by a kerchief as if she’d just been at work. She paused to pat her slightly rounded middle, which could not be concealed even by her thick blue woollen dress. “Good to see you too, Gavroche. Your brother Neville was here just yesterday.”

“He’d turn your books into his mattress if he could,” Gavroche quipped as they followed her into the front room. If he sniffed he could just pick up on the acrid tang of metal mingled with spirits, a sure sign that someone had recently been into the house’s laboratory. “How did Frassin come tripping up here?”

“Francois and I found him in the street. You should go right up and he’ll tell you about it,” Claudine explained in a hushed voice. “The other young man we found, we had him buried at Pere Lachaise. Citizen Frassin said we should do so.”

Bahorel gritted his teeth. “I should have wanted to take a look, but well one must do the decent thing.” He laughed when Claudine had to tug down her dress over her midsection. “You’d better hope there’s just one little fellow in there.”

“Francois and I have our doubts,” Claudine replied with a knowing sigh

“He will owe you an apology then. Two is a bit much.”

“Two amiable ones. You on the other hand should be making your apology to Therese every day. Three sons in four years are more than enough!”

“Why if she is charming and so am I, then whose fault is that?” Bahorel retorted as they followed Therese upstairs. He nudged Gavroche. “You’d better marry a woman with such cheek; anyone quieter would be the death of you!”

Gavroche smirked even as for a moment the image of Minette’s pert face came to mind. Yet all thoughts of this vanished on hearing Frassin’s groans of pain from a room at the end of the hall. ‘ _The sound of a man who has been very nearly done for,’_ he thought even as the odor of carbolic soap assailed his nostrils. He waved to Combeferre, who was stepping out of the sickroom. “How is he?”

“Alive. I’ve had to give him a dose to ease the pain, so he may be sleepy before long,” Combeferre said gravely as he wiped his spectacles. “He stands a chance yet.”

“In your hands he’ll be walking before long,” Bahorel replied confidently. “It may be much to ask, but can he stay here instead of us moving him to the Val du Grace, as per procedure?”

“Of course. He’ll be safer in this house, I gather,” Combeferre said. He clasped Gavroche’s shoulder. “I’m sorry that your first case is taking a morbid turn.”

“It wouldn’t be much of a tale otherwise,” Gavroche remarked. Even so nothing could quite prepare him for the sight of his friend lying in bed, his face swathed in bandages and his arms entirely covered by slings and gauze. The dim light and flickering shadows from the candles around the room could not obscure the severity of Frassin’s injuries. “Looks like only your nut is sound,” Gavroche joked weakly.

“Not so sure about that,” Frassin said, his voice surprisingly strong though cracked from some disuse. He raised his hand as if to indicate wherein he’d been struck upside the head. “Brujon fled to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. I followed him there, and we were talking on the Rue de Charonne when it happened.”

Gavroche rolled his eyes at the mention of this overly long street. “Accosted?”

“No, ambushed. That man—he was smart enough to wear his face muffled---tried to take Brujon off by the collar. I told him that I’d arrest them both, and I got knocked down for it,” Frassin said. He winced in pain and blinked, as if holding languor at bay. “He had a cudgel.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Bahorel advised. “Let the sleeping draught work.”

“You have to know, Inspector. That man left me alive. It was Brujon he wanted,” Frassin said. He tried to raise himself on his elbows only to collapse with a cry of pain. “When I came to, I was in some cellar. I heard Brujon crying in the room above me, that way one does when there’s a tooth aching or knocked out. The man---I think it was him---was asking him to give up names and addresses. Brujon wouldn’t, and then I heard something like pliers being brought out, and then there was a hot poker....” Frassin gritted his teeth as he shook his head. “He passed without saying a word.”

“I’ve seen torture before, and what I saw that happened to Brujon was inexplicable. Either he was particularly recalcitrant, or you have a sadist for an opponent,” Combeferre warned as he checked the injured man over. “Be careful or you might open up your wounds, my friend.”

Frassin nodded slowly as he shut his eyes. “You know what the odd thing was?” he whispered. “When I woke up again, on the street this time, my coat was gone and everything in the pockets.”

“Everything?” Bahorel repeated. “Even your notes?”

Frassin opened his eyes slowly. “They were in my wallet. I had several francs there----“

‘ _Now there is the problem,’_ Gavroche realized even as he heard Bahorel swear loudly. “I don’t see you writing much,” he pointed out.

“Brujon told me a few things, where we could go, and I was telling him where he couldn’t go,” Frassin murmured drowsily. “I had to cross out some places---“

“Now by Hercle, there’s the problem!” Bahorel exclaimed. He sighed when he saw Frassin’s eyes widen, clearly startled. “You rest now. I’ll mention the matter to Delessert. You’ll get some leave yet.”

Frassin nodded again, managing a smile as he sank back down on the mattress.” When I was sure that Brujon was done for, the man washed his hands and went into the church of Saint Marguerite. It was almost time for Vespers.”

‘ _He would have been long gone from the Marais by then,’_ Gavroche realized, recalling now that this was the same hour when he’d been at the Rue Guisarde.  He glanced at Frassin, only to find the man already fast asleep. “When I spoke to the elder Brujon he did not mention there being anyone of note in that neighbourhood,” he remarked.

“No Brujon has eyes all over Paris. This now leaves only poor Glorieux as our informant. That is, if he is not too deep in mourning so as no vengeance can be aroused in him,” Bahorel said as he got to his feet. “Thank you for your help, Combeferre,” he said to the physician.”I hope I have not brought danger to your door.”

“Hardly so; I am only doing my part,” Combeferre answered amiably. “As for you, you’d better be careful. I’ve stitched you both up too often for my liking.”

“He’s shaping up well,” Bahorel said proudly as he pounded Gavroche’s shoulders. “You’ll have less to worry about just yet.”

“I’m a physician and more importantly a friend. It is my job.” Combeferre went to a drawer and pulled out several rolls of gauze that had already been soaked in camphor and some other medications. He pressed them into Bahorel’s and Gavroche’s hands. “These will prove useful till one can get to a hospital or clinic. I only hope you will have no actual need for them.” 


	7. Chapter 7

****

**Chapter 7: On Old Gents and Fine Ladies**

Once again Gavroche woke up to a gray, chilly dawn. ‘ _A fine day for terrible questions,’_ he thought as he hurriedly made his toilette and changed into a cleaner set of clothes. As he went down to the boulangerie to purchase a roll for breakfast, he found himself mulling over the dire events of the previous day, particularly Glorieux’s present state. ‘ _How does one spin a thread from a weeping man?’_ he wondered silently as he handed over a sou for his bread.

The baker pocketed the coin before pointing up to an awning. “See that big cat there?” he whispered.

Gavroche turned to see an oversized tabby nimbly clambering up to a roof. “That one has a perfect pair of slippers.”

“Yes. Now watch,” the baker directed, following the cat’s route with his finger. “You think a man could get up that way? I heard something heavy on the roof last night.”

Gavroche paused only to stuff the bread roll into his coat sleeve. “At what hour?” He set down another sou, which the baker immediately pocketed. “I’ll have a brioche for that.”

“At about ten, before you came in,” the baker replied as he handed over another piece of bread. “He scampered off when you came walking up the square.”

Gavroche nodded as he pocketed the brioche. “Many thanks, Citizen.” For a moment it occurred to him to also scale the wall in order to scout this strange vantage point, but a quick look at his watch was enough to dissuade him from the idea. He ate the soft roll as he walked to the Rue du Pontoise, and had to pause to brush the crumbs off his clothes before stepping into the Prefecture’s door.

He immediately headed for the holding cells, where he saw Glorieux seemingly staring out into space, his eyes still red-rimmed with grief. The former convict was handcuffed, but he had been given a clean smock and a pair of rough trousers. “Good day. I have brought half a breakfast,” Gavroche greeted.

Glorieux cracked a smile on seeing the bread in Gavroche’s hand. “Brioche. You have good taste.” He took a bite of bread and chewed noisily. “So it’s La Force from here, I see?”

Gavroche shrugged. “You didn’t do it. You would have run if you did.” He met Glorieux’s surprised look. “You could have taken on everyone in that alley but you didn’t.”

“Wouldn’t have changed a thing. She was gone, so was our boy.” Glorieux shook his head. “You don’t have a little one of your own, I am sure of it. You don’t know how it would be----“ He clenched his fists before hanging his head again and biting back a sob. “If there is something wrong I’ve done, it wasn’t doing what I should have to protect them.”

Gavroche remained silent for a few moments until Glorieux could regain his composure. “Why were the neighbours saying it was you?” he asked.

Glorieux gave him a withering look. “It’s always the man’s doing, so they say.” He laughed bitterly and shook his head. “They must have seen me running---after the killer. I heard Victoria screaming, I heard the furniture breaking, and I ran in and saw her done for.”

“You saw who did it?”

“That’s all you bobbies care about.”

Gavroche was silent as Glorieux turned away from him. For a moment it seemed as if all words had failed him before this deep grief, but the sound of the dead woman’s name spilling from the grieving man’s lips suddenly brought a memory to mind. “She would have told by now,” Gavroche blurted out. “She was a tigress, like my mother.”

Glorieux jumped to his feet and would have lunged Gavroche if not for the manacles also around his ankles. “Don’t speak of her!”

“I remember her when she lived with Magnon and the boys. She could keep even Brujon in line,” Gavroche goaded as he took a step forward. “She had a good eye, she would have seen---“

“He had a knife and he went for me too!” Glorieux bellowed, rattling the manacles. “A tall man, dark cloak---a coat a bit like yours but that might have been the light, dark hair, a monocle---what more?”

Gavroche turned and motioned to the guards outside the cell to stay where they were. “That’s every other man in Paris. No good for a painting.”

Glorieux swore as he sat down once more. “Do you really want to know, little Thenardier? You’d take off that uniform of yours if you did.” He spat on the ground. “When Claquesous was alive we had little to fear from you bobbies. They kept their hands well out of our business.”

“A different page!” Gavroche said. He turned at the sound of the cell door opening. “Good morning Inspector,” he said, saluting Bahorel.

“At ease. I’ll take it from here,” Bahorel said as he doffed his hat. “I am deeply sorry for your arrest yesterday. My condolences for your loss,” he told the convict.

Glorieux took a deep gulping breath. “You’re a father, you understand,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve seen your lady around with your boys. You’re lucky to have them.”

Bahorel nodded slowly. “How long did you and Citizenness Hastings lodge together?”

“Three years.” Glorieux  sniffled. “You police do not think much of us but I had a place down at the quays. The lady took in some stitchery before we had the baby. No con can be seen in a place of grand carriages,” he added sourly.

“So some would say,” Bahorel muttered before tapping Gavroche’s shoulder to call the young man’s attention. “There is an inquiry you must make today. The masons of the Barriere du Maine have a major commission at the Odeon; it’s for one of Prouvaire’s plays.” Bahorel cleared his throat. “You’re to find one among them a man you know as Barrecrosse, but going under the name of Sylvain Laffite.”

Glorieux snorted at this. “What a fine name!”

“For a terrible profile,” Gavroche remarked, recalling now one of the most rugged and marred visages he had ever seen in this city. “Should I invite him back here?”

“If you can without undoing the stonework,” Bahorel replied. He turned at the sound of more footsteps approaching the cell. “A message?”

“You are both called to the Prefect’s office,” the messenger said. “Right now.”

It was all that Gavroche could do not to cringe more so when he saw Glorieux’s nonchalant shrug. “Wonder what he’s got to scrub now,” he groused as he followed Bahorel upstairs to Delessert’s office. ‘ _Someone’s thought to give the lamps a brushing,’_ he thought, noting that the room suddenly seemed brighter than when he’d last been summoned to it.

Delessert motioned for Bahorel and Gavroche to sit down. “A friend of mine has an interest in making your acquaintance,” he said, nodding to a gentleman seated near the desk. His thinning yellow hair betrayed his age but nevertheless he was still of an imposing build that was only accentuated by the lines of his greatcoat. “Citizens, meet my colleague Inspector Beaufort, recently returned from Rouen. Beaufort, may I present two of my agents Inspector Bahorel and Detective Thenardier.”

“So an excellent storm blows into Paris,” Bahorel said as he shook Beaufort’s hand heartily. “I remember clearly you once worked here in the Paris Prefecture.”

“Yes, a number of years ago. It’s a pity I was not able to be of assistance in your apprehending the counterrevolutionaries during your first investigation,” Beaufort answered warmly. “You have certainly made great strides since those days.”

Delessert cleared his throat. “Bahorel is the inspector in charge of the case I have appealed to you for. Thenardier is the agent we have on the field.”

“In their capable hands I am sure it will be solved readily,” Beaufort remarked. He nodded cordially to Gavroche. “I had thought that you would be more inclined to politics or art, given your upbringing.”

“I’m not stepping on my sisters’ toes,” Gavroche replied dryly.

“Thenardier has recently graduated from the Sorbonne with a licentiate in law. We are lucky that he has decided----“ Delessert trailed off as a messenger rushed into the office with a note. He quickly got up from his seat. “I have a quick trouble to attend to. My apologies.”

“We do what we must do,” Beaufort said with a long suffering sigh as he moved to let Delessert head to the door. “I do not intend to offend anyone in your circles, but I have always believed that a more forceful approach on the streets would be more effective in quelling crime instead of leaving it to the courts,” he said to Bahorel and Gavroche. “A mere vacation in La Force or Saint-Lazare is hardly a deterrent to crime.”

“Are you advocating the return of the galleys or the guillotine?” Bahorel asked testily.

“Not those measures,” Beaufort said, his tone taking on a shade of bitterness. “Never mind that though. You have a suspect in hand by the alias of Glorieux. What has he confessed to?”

“Nothing. He did not kill anyone,” Gavroche replied. He saw one of Beaufort’s eyebrows shoot up. “He and the lady had set up house together. He was no burglar.”

“Well that makes it a domestic dispute, and nonetheless dastardly,” Beaufort argued disdainfully.

“If it’s a matter only in the house, then it has nothing to do with the streets,” Gavroche pointed out. “He saw the culprit as he was fleeing---“

“Unlike you, Detective, I have found little good in readily placing my confidence in known agents of disorder,” Beaufort cut in as he put his gloved hands on the tabletop. “You of all people should be aware that the streets are oftentimes a law onto themselves, and oftentimes are in conflict with the interest of public order.”

Gavroche’s brow furrowed at this condescending tone but before he could say anything he saw Bahorel shake his head by way of warning. The young detective sat up straight and squared his shoulders as he met Beaufort’s piercing glare. “Well then we ought to do more listening to the first, if we are to solve the case. No one got murdered within the Prefecture walls, so I’ve been told.”

“More than most, if not all other agents here in Paris, my colleague here has practical knowledge of these streets. Without him we would not have much headway in our investigation,” Bahorel chimed in.

“Perhaps. However Detective Thenardier here was only a child when the worst of Patron-Minette and even the republican societies ran loose on these streets. Shadows have their ways of protecting the innocent,” Beaufort pointed out.

Bahorel laughed. “Being among the chief fighters at the barricade of the Rue de Chanvrerie is hardly the work of an innocent.”

 “Is that so?” Beaufort asked after a moment. “Perhaps Detective Thenardier would like to regale us with a story about how he picked out bullets from the National Guard, or ran with messages to Saint Merry and Les Halles.”

“I had a musket, and when I did bring a message it was to the Hotel de Ville, to meet with Lafayette,” Gavroche replied. He then got up and saluted to Bahorel. “I will return with my report.”

 “Do be careful, Gavroche,” Bahorel said, giving him a serious and knowing look. “I will expect you to return by sundown.”

Gavroche nodded before donning his hat and heading downstairs and into the street. The day had grown warm enough to allow him to walk through a labyrinth of side roads leading to the wide Rue Saint Jacques, which he then traversed to eventually arrive at the Rue Racine, which opened out onto the Place de l’Odeon.

A foreman standing on the theater steps glowered at Gavroche. “Coming to search my men? I’ve got no drunks and rabble rousers here, Officer.”

“I’m only making a call,” Gavroche said as he tipped his hat.

“No calls! It’s a workday!” the officer growled.

“Not up in the gallery seats,” Gavroche retorted as he sauntered into the lobby. He walked right into the theater’s main hall, from where he could hear the rising din of a tiff in the orchestra pit between the conductor and a lead violinist. Regardless of this rehearsals were still underway on the stage, with a group of men reading parts under the direction of a young man who was suspended upside down by means of a harness attached to the waistband of his trousers.

 As Gavroche tiptoed towards the stage he caught sight of a small, delicately built boy clambering over a row of seats to reach him. “This is no place for mice, even if they could jump,” he greeted as he caught the child.

Maximillien Prouvaire wrinkled his nose before shaking his light brown hair out of his eyes. “Maman and Papa said I could watch.” He glanced towards the man who was still suspended by the harness. “Papa is trying something new.”

“Looking like a fly on the wall,” Gavroche quipped as he hoisted little Maximillien onto his shoulders and adjusted his greatcoat such that his face was hidden in the folds while Maximillien’s head and shoulders poked above the neckline. Gavroche carried Maximillien up to the wings and stepped out just enough to be seen by the man in the harness. “Good day Citizen Prouvaire,’ he greeted in a deep voice.

“Good day to you---oh what are you doing there?” Jean Prouvaire greeted before suddenly twisting about in the harness. He muttered something in Occitan before just managing to extricate himself and landing on the stage with an awkward thump. He laughed sheepishly amid the guffaws of the company before getting to his feet and then tying his long hair away from his face. “Who’s brought you up here?” he asked as he went to his son.

“A pair of fast feet,” Gavroche replied impishly as he finally showed himself and took off the greatcoat. “Fancy flying you’re doing there, and with pretty words for wings.”

“The opera requires it,” Prouvaire said affably as he picked up Maximillien off Gavroche’s shoulders. “How may I help you?”

“Is Uncle Gavroche going to help get rid of the bad men on stage?” Maximillien chirped.

“No, the knights are already practicing for that, and you already know the ending to that story,” Prouvaire said. “We’ve been rehearsing a battle,” he explained to Gavroche. “It’s no ordinary battle, since it takes place during a masque.”

Maximillien suddenly wriggled out of his father’s arms. “Maman! Look who’s here!” he called as he ran up to a slender woman who was rolling up the sleeves of her lavender dress.

“Your uncle Gavroche is always full of surprises,” Azelma Thenardier-Prouvaire remarked as she smoothed down her son’s hair and brushed some dust off his clothes. She then straightened up primly and tucked a stray raven strand back behind her ear. “Opening night isn’t for another month,” she said to her brother. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to speak to one of your stonemasons,” Gavroche replied, directing these words both to her and to Prouvaire. He glanced towards where a troupe of men was measuring a rough column. “Have you got a fellow named Sylvain Laffite?”

“Laffite? I remember he was here yesterday; perhaps he’s around today but at another part of the set,” Prouvaire said. “I’ll check with the foreman.”

Azelma remained silent until Prouvaire was out of earshot before bending to kiss Maximillien’s brow. “Run along, Max. Go after your Papa,” she instructed.

Maximillien nodded and kissed her cheek. “What about Uncle Gavroche?”

“I need to talk to him,” Azelma answered. She put her hands akimbo as she looked at her brother. “What are you poking into now?”

“Only a question.”

“You might scare some of the men here.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t seen him, with those wide lookers of yours. His name is Barrecrosse,” Gavroche said. For a moment he saw a flicker of astonishment play across his sister’s face. “You saw him working here, I’m sure.”

“He goes with the masons; the theater employed them for this job and others,” Azelma retorted shortly. “I’ve been watching him, don’t you worry about it.”

“The Prefecture has him in its sights too,” Gavroche informed her. “It’s about what happened in Toulouse—“

At the mention of this town Azelma shook her head vehemently and grabbed his arm. “Not a word about it here!” she hissed. She looked around furtively before speaking again. “If people know why we have to do with him besides this masonry work, what will they think?”

“Depends if it’s Barrecrosse or Laffite that they meet,” Gavroche replied. “Now since when did you get those cat claws?”

Azelma let go of his arm and stepped away. “Please, just go. I can’t have you poking about these affairs right here.”  

“You could turn your back while I talk to Laffite,” Gavroche suggested. “Sweep it behind you.”

“I won’t have trouble,” Azelma said flatly. “It’s supposed to be over and done with, seven years ago.”

“People still dig up the graveyard after thirty or fifty years, centuries too.”

“You could be just as bad as Papa sometimes with all the things you plan.”

“I’m not getting any sous for it. That’s the difference between me and him,” Gavroche pointed out. ‘ _She’s the one who’s spent the most time with him, she’d know,’_ he decided.

 “He’d call you a fool for saying that. Even for just being in the police force.” She wrung her hands as she met Gavroche’s gaze.  “He said worse when Jehan and I last saw him at a party, when we asked for his consent to our marriage. He would have knocked me down but Jehan and I weren’t going to allow him.”

Gavroche snorted at the thought of their father turning livid while stranded in the middle of a well heeled gathering. “Not a peep since then?”

Azelma nodded. “I think he’s still in Paris. You know him, never could stay away from events, like us.”

“Where is he now?””

“Last I heard, on the Rue de Aligre. But this is not Montfermeil, so I doubt he has that address,” she said before waving to Prouvaire, who was walking up with Maximillien in tow. “What now?”

“The foreman said that Laffite did not sign in for work today,” Prouvaire replied apologetically as he balanced Maximillien on his hip. He gave Gavroche a knowing look. “Laffite left his address at the Rue de Biron, Number Fifteen.”

‘ _What a far way to fly just to chip at rocks,’_ Gavroche noted silently. “Do I still get a ticket to the opening night?” he asked at length.

Azelma clucked her tongue mockingly. “That’s all you care about eh? But if you get enough friends in with you we can get you a box.”

“That would be a sight for pickings,” Gavroche remarked. “Today though the tree is bare. Good day to all of you,” he added before bowing with a flourish. He could hear some chorus girls and seamstresses giggling as he passed to the rear of the hall, but he allowed himself only a smile at them especially given the hour. ‘ _It should not take me long to reach that street,’_ he decided as he left the theater and headed down in the general direction of the Luxembourg, knowing he could cut across this promenade in order to more quickly reach the south-western borders of the city. He entered the park by way of the Palais des Pairs and crossed a narrow walkway opening to the garden’s main lane.

As soon as he had crossed this pass he caught sight of a lovely woman dressed in delicate pink silk, strolling down the path. At the sound of Gavroche’s footsteps she stopped and turned. “Why, Citizen Thenardier! Just the man I wanted to see today!”

Gavroche felt his mouth go dry but all the same he cleared his throat and managed a deep bow. “How is that possible, Citizenness Debault?” he asked as he met Minette’s dark eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: A Tale of Officers**

If for a moment Gavroche had expected Minette to titter or launch into a litany of platitudes, he found himself more amply rewarded instead with a coy smile from the lady. “A friendly face is always a good thing to have in these parts. Have you suddenly been asked to patrol the Luxembourg?” she asked.

“We call it simply taking in the air,” Gavroche replied as he squared his shoulders. “I don’t see Citizen Tolbert strutting about.”

“He’s at work,” Minette replied primly, though her cheeks had colored for a moment at the mention of the other officer. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened to Citizen Frassin. Will he make a recovery?”

“Yes. He has an excellent doctor,” Gavroche said. “He has a better hand with stitching than many of our seamstresses do with underpinnings.”  

Minette’s eyes widened at Gavroche’s nonchalant words. “What a thing to say! I thought you were brought up in a gentleman’s household!”

Gavroche could not help but laugh at this exclamation. “No one’s nose was too long for them to miss such things.” His grin widened at Minette’s incredulous expression. “Were you thinking that I’d lived among stuffed shirts?”

 “Does your family know what you say when you’re not in their hearing?” Minette asked.

“They’re not censors,” Gavroche replied, remembering many a lively day at the Rue Guisarde. “Freedom of speech is a prime article of our social contract.”

Minette was silent for a moment as she regarded him with a thoughtful expression. “So is it true what they say, that you grew up outside of Paris?”

‘ _When she means ‘they’, she means Tolbert,’_ Gavroche realized. “I merely started there; I was only a mite when my father decided to flip coins here.”

“That’s a charming way to say it. I never heard that phrase where I grew up, all the way in Rouen.”

“You won’t hear it anywhere else.” 

Minette pursed her lips together but was quite unable to stifle her giggling. “If only all Parisian men could be as witty and helpful! Would you know where I can find some cufflinks?”

“There are always good places in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, but the ladies find some classical pieces on the Rue Saint-Honore,” Gavroche suggested.

“Not for me,” Minette said in a lower, more confidential tone. “Should I get something simple in gold, or in a fancier metal? I’ve never seen Tolbert in anything but brass.”

Gavroche took a deep breath, if only to hold back a sigh. “He’d shine brighter than a coin if he had any more baubles!”

“I’ve told him so, but he finds it seemly on him,” Minette pointed out. “Maybe you can help me find something that doesn’t make him stand out too much.”

The very image of his colleague smiling smugly with another glimmer at his belt was enough to have Gavroche shaking his head. “The dandies like a place on the Rue des Cordeliers, near the Sorbonne,” he finally said. “Makes them look less like boobies, I think.”

“There’s nothing wrong with looking quite nice,” Minette argued. “You don’t sound fond of it.”

“Only of things that always get hidden when someone has to keep warm,” Gavroche replied, miming pulling down his coatsleeve over his wrist. He managed a smile as he tipped his hat to Minette. “I have been summoned by a case. I hope you find what you’re looking for, Citizenness.”

A small smile played over Minette’s lips. “Thank you very much, Citizen Thenardier. I shan’t forget it.”

‘ _Nor will I,’_ Gavroche could not help thinking as he headed down the Luxembourg’s main promenade, all the while aware of Minette’s footfalls fading towards the west gate of the park. Fortunately the sharp chill in the air had him quickening his steps and buttoning his coat all the way up to his neck, such that he was fully covered yet red in the face by the time he traversed the Rue d’Enfer and passed the Observatorie Royal. From here it was only a short walk to the corner of the Rue de Biron, which in those days was a street that ran between two lines of sedate, comfortable dwellings partially hidden by a canopy of trees that ran the entire length of the lane.  

It took a few minutes before Gavroche finally located a rusting carriage gate just past the thickest of the greenery. “Someone’s let the weeds grow thick,” he muttered as he stepped over the gutter and rattled one of the bars on the gate.  Just beyond the shrubbery he could just glimpse a cottage half hidden by overgrown vines. “Good day! Anyone roosting here?”

A window snapped open on the second storey. “Go away! No callers here!” a gruff voice roared.

“It’s not a call, it’s a rude visit from the Prefecture!” Gavroche called, cupping his hands to his mouth.

The window rattled shut, and a few moments later the front door opened to reveal a tall man with his hands in the air. His head was bare, revealing to the daylight his twisted visage; his nose had clearly been smashed in a long finished dispute, his skin was wrinkled, and his eyes bleary with rheum. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it, Inspector,” this man said in a hollow voice. “I was at work all of yesterday and the days before that---you can ask at the Odeon and at Richefu’s. I’ve been at home all morning patching a hole up in my roof.”

“Easy now. You’ve made a deposition before anyone’s asked for it, Barrecrosse,” Gavroche greeted.

Barrecrosse stopped in his tracks. “I heard talk that there’d be agents about, but I never thought they’d send you, Gavroche Thenardier.”

“If they sent someone else they would have asked for Sylvain Laffitte, and it’s a bad sobriquet,” Gavroche said. “I’m here because of some pinching that’s been going on.”

“I told you I have nothing to do with it. I haven’t seen _Mangedentelle_ since spring.”

“It’s not only him, but also Mamselle Miss and just last night young Brujon.”

Barrecrosse paled at this news. “So the talk is true---we’re as good as sent to the scaffold. Did anyone mark my absence today---aside from the foreman?”

“Only the playmaker and the designer of the sets,” Gavroche said. “They were the ones who told me about this address.”

“At least you younger Thenardiers know how to repay an old friend---better than your father at any rate.” Barrecrosse spat on the ground and wiped his mouth. “You will arrest me now?”

“No, merely relocate you.” Even as Gavroche said this he already caught sight of a much muffled figure waiting at the corner of the Rue de Biron. “Come now, don’t leave my toes to get cold,” he cajoled.

Barrecrosse swore as he worked one of the gate’s bars loose, just enough to create an opening for Gavroche to slip through. “Then where will that be? A cell in La Force, no doubt?”

“Ah, a judge has to book you for that, and we have none at the ready,” Gavroche replied. He cast a glance over his shoulder, just in time to see this ominous figure rushing up to the house. “We’d better run and pack next to nothing for you.”

Barrecrosse’s eyes widened as he looked past the detective. “You little trickster!”

Out of the corner of his eye Gavroche glimpsed a glimmer of gunmetal, giving him only a split second to tackle the bigger man to the ground before a bullet ricocheted off the top of the gate. “Keep your nut low!” he hissed as they crawled behind an overgrown rosebush.

Barrecrosse glowered at him. “Were you followed? Were you alone?”

“I was, and you can ask at the Odeon too,” Gavroche replied. Through the foliage he could see that the gunman had vanished from sight without a trace, save for the single ball of lead now buried in the brick wall. He was not willing to risk another encounter in the street, but on the other hand to take refuge in the house was to risk being shut in. Knowing this, Gavroche then took hold of Barrecrosse’s collar before inching towards the house’s narrow backyard, hoping to find some concealed gate there.

At length Barrecrosse wrested himself free of Gavroche’s grip. “You’ve ruined your coat, little Thenardier,” he growled before pulling himself up to sit on his haunches. He pressed on some places in the wall, paused for a moment and then with several blows of his fist succeeded in tearing down a wooden grille that had been covered in ivy. “From here is the Marche au Charbon.”

 “A place for parasols only!” Gavroche muttered, looking up at the rapidly darkening skies. They wriggled out of this narrow aperture and onto a pebble-strewn path that wound through the more shadowed reaches of a tiny park. Gavroche looked around for any sign of other prowlers before pulling Barrecrosse to his feet. Even as he did so he wrinkled his nose at the first tang of rain in the air. “I know a place where we can pull our heads in and shake the mud off our feathers.”

Barrecrosse scowled at him. “It still ends at the Prefecture.”

“Only if one trips up,” Gavroche drawled as they passed between the hedges towards a gate opening out onto the Rue de la Sante. The rain had begun to fall as they crossed the Jardin du Luxembourg, thus forcing them to take shelter under an awning at the Palace des Pairs. ‘ _Where’s a fiacre when one needs it?’_ he thought as he rubbed his hands together for warmth.

As for Barrecrosse he was silent for a few minutes as he watched the rainfall begin to slow and ease up. “That man’s seen you. He’ll come after you as well,” he said at last. “I see you don’t carry a gun or even a billystick.”

“Not when I’m knocking on doors,” Gavroche said. “You knew he was coming, that’s why you were shut up in the house. So who sang?”

“You’re not the only one who watches the news,” Barrecrosse said gruffly. “When I knew that _Mangedentelle_ was dead, I knew who’d done it. Only one person would have enough bite for it. It was on a job done even before your father put his hands in our business. You were only a mite then.”

“Who then?” Gavroche asked.

Barrecrosse laughed hollowly. “Why don’t you search the Prefecture first? The answer always lies there, doesn’t it?” He sneered as he looked Gavroche over. “I’m sure you salute the man every day. He would be of that sort.”

Gavroche felt a pit in his stomach at the brigand’s words. “Are you sure?’”

“I remember it clear as crystal, even after all these years.”

“If I brought you there, would you know him?”

“I’d rather kill him where he stands. Put me in handcuffs,” Barrecrosse threatened.

Gavroche was silent for a moment before he took off the handcuffs he kept at his belt and carefully locked them around Barrecrosse’s wrists. “Can’t have you going that far though. Lead the way.”  


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Bloody Deeds and Wretched Hearts**

By the time Gavroche and Barrecrosse arrived at the Rue de Pontoise, the bells at the church of Saint Nicolas were already ringing out the hour for Vespers. ‘ _Bahorel said to be back by sundown but there’s no telling with these clouds,’_ Gavroche thought as they alighted from a rickety fiacre. “Welcome to the crows’ nest,” he said to Barrecrosse.

The brigand sniffed at the sight of the squat building that housed the Prefecture’s headquarters. “Some things never quite change. Still reeks of pompous mold in those holes.”

Gavroche nodded, deciding not to mention for the time being that Glorieux had spent the better part of two days in one of these holding cells. Much to his surprise the building’s foyer was abuzz with conversation and shouting as soon as he stepped in. “What’s this all about?” he asked a messenger who was running through the hall.

“Detective Thenardier! Haven’t you heard so yet?” the messenger said enthusiastically. “Tolbert and senior Inspector Beaufort have just come back from raiding the Faubourg du Temple.”

“Why, what for?”

“To get those blackguards who killed that Englishwoman and her child.”

“Someone was sloppy about pulling the heads in!” Gavroche muttered. “Anyone dead?”

“Five, they say.”

“Nevertheless the rest of the group is in La Force,” Tolbert announced as he sauntered down the stairs, all the while wiping his hands. He made an exaggerated bow to Gavroche but reserved a sneer for Barrecrosse. “I see your venture was successful.”

“Useful,” Gavroche replied. “So who did it?”

“A crew of robbers. Beaufort knew their movements almost from seeing the scene.” Tolbert’s smile was cool as he eyed Gavroche. “I have reserved a table at the Musain. You are free to join us.”

For a moment Gavroche thought of refusing, but for recalling his conversation with Minette in the park. ‘ _I should like to see if she got the cufflinks after all,’_ he decided. “I will merely see to my visitor first,” he finally said. He nodded to Barrecrosse. “We’d best talk to the senior inspector.”

Barrecrosse huffed as he glanced back at Tolbert. “How does he not get shot with all that metal?” he asked Gavroche.

“It blinds the gunmen,” Gavroche quipped as he led his companion to Bahorel’s office. He found his senior colleague there tossing aside the remains of a cigar. “Presenting the lesser known Laffitte,” he said by way of announcing his guest.

Bahorel turned to look at them. “At ease, Citizens.” He extended a hand to Barrecrosse. “It is very good of you to join us.”

“Only to save my skin,” Barrecrosse said gruffly. “I know you; you were with one of the groups that would raise the Latin Quartier. The boys at the Musain.”

“In more dangerous days,” Bahorel said amiably. His cheery expression grew troubled as he surveyed the two newcomers. “Were you accosted?”

“By a pistol from the street,” Gavroche replied.

“Did you see the man?”

“I know who he is---he almost had me collared but for my fainting away after a job,” Barrecrosse growled. “Is he here in the Prefecture?”

“You will have to describe more than that, Citizen,” Bahorel said.

“You boobies, always protecting your own!” Barrecrosse yelled exasperatedly. “He’s an agent here; should be far older by now but I’d know his murderous hand. Give him to me!”

“Easy there, man,” Gavroche said, putting a hand on Barrecrosse’s shoulder. “You’d scare off those chickens who’d sing something.”

“You’re all the same!” Barrecrosse roared. He made to stalk off, but paused at the clanking of the shackles still at his wrists. “Unhand me now.”

Gavroche made for the key in his pocket but even as he did so he noticed Beaufort passing the corridor outside, talking to another agent. For a moment Beaufort paused in his tracks, as if trying to see what was going on in Bahorel’s office, but just as quickly he turned away and continued with his conversation as if nothing had happened. Barrecrosse on the other hand took a half step forward, only to swear and grit his teeth. “Let me out.”

“You’re agitated my friend. Take a seat,” Bahorel said firmly. “Have you been receiving threats of any form, from a particular individual?”

“I know when someone is coming for me. I have only one reason for it,” Barrecrosse yelled before spitting at Bahorel. He attempted to kick the inspector, only to have Bahorel cuff him and shove him into a seat. “Unhand me!”

Bahorel whistled to a constable waiting by the door. “Let him sit for a while in a holding cell, till his temper wears off,” he ordered. “Citizen, if you will not cooperate, then we will have to release you but without any guarantee for your safety should you be attacked once more,” he said to Barrecrosse. “You should consider that.”

Barrecrosse gave him a venomous look. “Is that so?”

Bahorel did not say anything more but only motioned for the brigand to be brought away. “He’ll come around,” he muttered before nodding to Gavroche. “Did you take note of the gunman?”

“He was well muffled. The gun he had was heavier than a knock-me-down,” Gavroche replied. “He only fired once; he knew that missing his mark was not worth another pop.”

“A practiced hand then,” Bahorel observed. “In all likelihood he is a hired assassin.”

“Barrecrosse said that this had to do with some crime he and his comrades committed years ago,” Gavroche said.

“He has been circumventing the details. Something or someone is preventing him from opening that sepulchre and making a clean breast of it,” Bahorel pointed out. “Unless we can overcome that impediment he will not be very helpful as an informant.”

‘ _Some people would say he could be culpable,’_ Gavroche thought. “Will you question him?”

“In the morning.” The older inspector checked his watch. “Glorieux has been exonerated thanks to Beaufort’s work. He’s going free in a while. Because of that there is a celebration at the Musain tonight.”

“Will you join us?”

“Perhaps, after a previous assignation.”

Gavroche grinned approvingly. “Give Citizenness Bahorel and your sons my regards.” He saluted once more and headed out into the rapidly darkening street. He kept his hands in his pockets as he walked unhurriedly to the Place Saint-Michel, all the while whistling an old ditty: ‘ _We were five to six good chaps, Coming back from Longjumeau. We went in an inn. To drink some wine of the year, It's a drink a drink a drink, It's a drink that we need.’_ He laughed and tipped his hat to some drinkers who chimed in with the lyrics of the song. “A fine chorus, Athenians!” he hailed them as he continued on his way.

Gavroche arrived to find the Musain bright and crowded, with many of the Prefecture’s younger agents as well as some grisettes all gathered around a long table in the middle of the taproom. Tolbert was in the place of honor, grinning at some toast being made to him. Gavroche took the opportunity to steal in and slip into a vacant seat. “A nip of the jug if you please,” he whispered to his seatmate.

“You need to be warmed up, Thenardier,” his comrade said, handing him a full glass. “A pity you missed Tolbert’s expedition. A perfect raid it was---“

“If you’d been to the Prefecture earlier, you could have joined it!” Tolbert called.  He raised a glass to Gavroche. “We charged into the biggest house at that foul faubourg, caught a dozen of them dividing up spoils like the Romans did to Jesus Christ. They tried to flee but we had the house surrounded at all exits and even on the rooftops.”

Gavroche took a healthy swig of the drink he had in hand. “And how many cats did you have with you aside from the big mouser Beaufort?”

“Ah he’s the genius of the day. Said he’d know their handiwork anywhere. It’s the years he has on him,” another agent concurred. “He used to get the bloodiest cases in the Prefecture, so he certainly knows his business.”

“Some call him a butcher, others say he is efficient. I rate him as somewhere in between,” an older detective chimed in.

Tolbert’s expression soured but a moment later a smile spread on his face as he glanced at the door. “Good evening Citizenness Debault.”

“To you, Citizen Tolbert,” Minette said, her tone all gracious as she nodded to him. She brought out a small box from under the folds of her shawl. “It’s not a medal but I think it serves far better.”

Tolbert smiled bemusedly at her as he opened the box. “How did you come across such cufflinks?”

“A pretty place I heard of,” Minette replied. It was all that Gavroche could do to hide his smirk in his drink on hearing these words. “Do you like them?” she prattled on.

Tolbert inspected the cufflinks for a moment before closing the box. “Thank you, Citizenness. They will do very nicely.”

“Is that all you will say?”

“What, a kiss too? Now come and have a seat and I will tell you all about today----“

Minette frowned at the jug of brandy and stout being passed around. “I will order wine.”

“Such extravagance,” Tolbert remarked. “You must have a good payday!”

Minette did not say anything to this but instead merely crossed the taproom to speak to one of the young servers. Gavroche waited for Tolbert to return to the business of regaling their comrades before getting to his feet and joining Minette at where she was awaiting her drink near the cafe’s counter.  “A medal would have been more to his taste,” he said to her.

“I know that. I figured out as much even when I bought them,” Minette said.

“Then why did you?”

“A girl has to make a show from time to time.” She laughed as she met his questioning look. “He’s not the only one who has money. I do honest work myself.”

“Some old hens would say you’re wooing him,” Gavroche said with a smirk.

“You are mistaken, Citizen. He is wooing me.” Minette turned to get a glass of wine being handed to her and she raised it with a mocking smile. “As for me, I am simply being practical.”

‘ _Does he know?’_ Gavroche wondered as he stepped aside to let her return to the table and take her seat next to Tolbert. Her smile was bright but for a moment it seemed as if her eyes darkened with a sort of slight when he barely nodded at her. ‘ _A half practiced actress!’_ Gavroche could not help thinking even as he fished in his pocket for some sous to order more brandy.

Despite what restraint was exhibited by some of the more sober members of this company, it was past midnight by the time the agents quitted the Musain and stumbled back to their respective homes. ‘ _This is a way of drinking fog,’_ Gavroche thought the next morning when he opened his eyes to the suddenly blinding sunlight intruding through the shutters of his apartment. He rubbed his eyes and then got up to wash his face and shave before following the smell of coffee and boiled eggs downstairs to the concierge’s lodge.

Navet, who was seated at a rickety table, raised his cup of coffee by way of greeting. “In with the brandy and out with the comb.”

“I’ll set this rug straight soon enough,” Gavroche retorted as he ran a hand through his still tousled hair.

Navet rolled a boiled egg and passed several pieces of bread across the table. “So the older newspapermen say that Butcher Beaufort is now back in Paris.”

“Butcher Beaufort?”

“That’s what he’s called when he’s not looking,” Navet said confidentially. “You remember that old man Javert, who used to pull us off by the ear? Perfectly sweet smelling compared to Beaufort.”

Gavroche frowned as he began to peel the egg. “Most agents have popped a man or two.”

“It’s not the bleeding that gives him the name. He’s more of a wolf, since he never quite gives up the hunt,” Navet said. “At least that was before he failed to stop an ambuscade out at the Faubourg du Temple. Some friends of his died there too and it was an embarrassment to the Prefecture. Much ink spent discussing that.”

‘ _While Barrecrosse, Glorieux, and their crew ran free?’_ Gavroche wondered silently as he shook some sticky eggshell off his fingers. “How many years ago was this?”

Navet shrugged. “Half our lives, maybe more? He left Paris before 1832. I am sure of that or we would have heard of him skulking about the barricades.”

 “Well he hasn’t gathered moss yet,” Gavroche muttered before wolfing down the egg and then pocketing the bread. “May your ink be well spent!”

“Where are you going---“Navet began before he was suddenly interrupted by a rapid knock on the door. He hurried to open it and was greeted by the sight of their concierge rushing in. “Now what’s flown up your petticoats, Citizenness?”

The concierge nearly fainted on seeing Navet and Gavroche. “There’s a dead man in the alley! You must go after him---“

At these words Gavroche immediately headed back upstairs. “Where are you going?” Navet shouted after him.

“To catch a cat!” Gavroche exclaimed as he hurried up to the house’s topmost floor, which was little more than a narrow, dusty gable with a single window. He pushed aside the cobwebs just in time to see a fiacre rushing away from the alley, in the direction now of the Quai Montebello. ‘ _Wings on the street!’_ he realized as he ran downstairs and outside towards the commotion just outside his lodging house.

Navet and several passersby were trying to keep the crowd away from the form of a man lying on his side with his arm thrown over his face. “Thought you’d want to take a look, Gavroche,” Navet said in a whisper. “Looks like he was running.”

‘ _To here, or away?’_ Gavroche wondered even as he bent down to close Glorieux’s now unseeing eyes. 


	10. Chapter 10

****

**Chapter 10: The Respectable**

It became clear to Gavroche that there was little purpose in the usual inquiries surrounding the murder of Glorieux. ‘ _No use squeezing out juice from blind eyes,’_ he noted even as he listened to yet another neighbor relating about how she had simply heard a body fall. “Well did anyone at least see the number of the fiacre that left this place?” he asked, gesturing to the far end of the alley.

Navet jerked his thumb towards the quay. “That old black Rotschild? Number Three Seven Three.” His jaw dropped as he saw Gavroche button up his coat. “You’re going after it? What about here?”

“As good as a biscuit,” Gavroche said, gesturing to where someone had covered Glorieux’s remains with a shawl. “The fiacre is, and maybe with someone out to do another pinching.”

Navet nodded understandingly. “But you don’t have anything to run with....” he trailed off before searching his own pockets and then finally producing a pen knife. “Might sting him a bit if you need it.”

Gavroche clasped his hand gratefully. “Don’t waste ink on this,” he instructed as he pocketed the pen knife and then headed down to the Quai Montebello. Unsurprisingly he found the fiacre down near the embankment, with its doors open and the coachman smoking nearby. On seeing Gavroche, the cabbie tossed his pipe aside and fled down the street. “What, spooked!” Gavroche muttered peevishly as he continued walking hurriedly towards the Rue du Pontoise.

Upon arriving at the Prefecture he made a beeline for the commissaire’s office, where he found Bahorel discussing matters with the officer of the day. “Glorieux is dead,” he announced. “Right outside my door, to be square about it.”

Bahorel got to his feet before motioning for the officer of the day to step out of the room. “When did this happen?”

“Just now.”

“Then you should still be at the scene, questioning your witnesses and getting evidence.”

“Everyone had pulled their heads in,” Gavroche pointed out. “Glorieux isn’t moving anymore but the man who did for him is on the run.”

Bahorel shook his head ruefully. “You saw him once more, and where was he headed?”

“Down here. To wherever Beaufort is, I daresay---if we are to trust what Barrecrosse said last night,” Gavroche volunteered. “The papers know that Beaufort has returned to Paris.”

Bahorel swore under his breath. “Was this published?”

“I haven’t checked the sheets yet, but I have word from a pair of ears,” Gavroche replied.

“Give Navet my regards for his discretion,” Bahorel said. He reached into a drawer and tossed over some of the bandages that they had acquired from Combeferre several nights ago. “You mean then to keep an eye on Beaufort?”

“At least till you’ve gotten Barrecrosse to sing,” Gavroche replied as he pocketed the bandages. “Where is Beaufort lodging?”

“At the Ile de Saint Louis. There is a new hostel there fronting the Rue des Ponts,” Bahorel opened another drawer and handed a single small pistol to Gavroche. “Keep that close. You don’t want that wrested away from you.”

Gavroche saluted grimly before tucking the pistol in his coat pocket and then making his way back outside. It was only a short walk to the bridge leading to the Ile de Saint Louis, and upon arriving at the Quai d’Orleans he immediately took notice of the _Hotel Lafayette_ , a spacious brick house fronting a small courtyard surrounded by a high iron fence.  “I’m here to speak to Inspector Beaufort,” he said to the sullen porter at the gate.

“The old long nose? Right up on the second floor, the end room” the porter spat. He eyed Gavroche’s uniform warily. “You’re watching this neighbourhood, aren’t you? That’s why he’s moved in. I tell you, we don’t want any trouble here.”

“The storm will pass over you well enough. You have a thick enough hat,” Gavroche replied, saluting this porter who then began to take pains to comb out his dishevelled head of hair. Without hailing the concierge in the lobby he headed right up to the second floor and knocked four times, only to be met by silence.

As he tried the doorknob, with every intention now of picking the lock, he heard the creak of footsteps overhead. “Some council!” he muttered before creeping up a back stairway, which was far closer to hand than the guests’ passage. He found himself on a narrow veranda overlooking the rear garden, but as he looked about he realized that the left extreme of this terrace had a view of some of the adjoining rooms. In one of these chambers was Beaufort, seated comfortably in an armchair while watching another gentleman pacing to and fro. This bearded stranger, evidently the chief lodger of this apartment, was clad in a loose shirt that was already fraying at the cuffs, a gray waistcoat missing a couple of buttons, and a pair of yellow pantaloons. He wore his graying hair long, but tied back with a faded sort of kerchief. When this man turned on his heel, having completed one circuit of the room, Gavroche ducked out of sight. This other’s visage was distant but familiar all the same to him. ‘ _My father has found a warm cave for himself,’_ he thought even as he edged closer to the terrace’s railing.

“I only ask for a little, enough for my station!” the older Thenardier said plaintively as he wrung his hands. “It was only a series of cruel tricks that had me at the mercy of those scoundrels, but otherwise I have been a respectable man. I was at Waterloo, I’ll remind you of it!”

“As you have, time and again,” Beaufort said, crossing his arms as he cast a look of sheer ennui at Thenardier. “Your audacity in asking for more recompense is almost unheard of; it should be the duty of citizens to assist agents of justice in uncovering these matters.”

“Do not misunderstand me, Inspector Beaufort. I know my right and civic duty as well as the next man,” Thenardier said, holding up his hands before making a deep bow. “It is only a little assistance. As you can see, I live alone and am deprived of any succour in my advanced years. No wife at my side, no children to cheer me---not even that pension I should have had for my bravery!” He shook his head and let out a long sigh that would have been rueful if not for the vehement look in his eyes. “You have promised to help me make my fortune---“

“If you turn over those individuals who have allowed those criminals to evade justice all these years,” Beaufort cut in.

Thenardier sniffed. “I have nothing to do with that sort.”

“Pierre Montparnasse was undisturbed in Toulouse for seven years. He could not have arrived there without some assistance,” Beaufort replied. “Your family was known to be associated with him, and your daughters have yet to disavow any connection.”

“He was the blackguard who corrupted them!” Thenardier bellowed. “I did my best to raise my girls with good morals, to prevent from raising their eyes to the gentlemen, to walk the straight and narrow. It’s those foolish romantic notions that did it that let them allow that scoundrel into our home.”

“So there is a connection after all?” Beaufort pressed on.

Thenardier was pacing more quickly by now. “I almost had our fortune in hand, if not for my eldest daughter, that ungrateful hussy. We were about to make an important connection, but instead of siding with me, her dear father, she threw herself at a blood-drinking lawyer! What shamelessness! How unbecoming of a Thenardier!” He stopped and looked Beaufort in the eye. “I warrant that she has more to do with it than you know.”

“On what basis you make this claim?”

“It is she who protects criminals, by allowing child-stealing convicts to rest easy in good society, by letting lawyers run about their business in the courts while she makes favors in the backrooms, and allowing scandals among those bohemian neighbours of hers---all the while turning her back on her father. Not a sou! Not a thought!”

Beaufort regarded the former innkeeper for a long moment. “Aside from the Rue Guisarde and her workplace at the Rue des Macons, what other places does she frequent?”

Thenardier stroked his beard. “What is it to you?”

“There is something I need to ascertain,” Beaufort replied. “Evidently the lady is nothing to you, even if she is your flesh and blood.”

“Nevertheless I have fed her, sheltered her for a number of years. She was my favoured child for a time,” Thenardier said, dramatically striking his breast. “You must understand, she is my eldest---“

“If you prattle on in this manner, I will have you share her fate,” Beaufort retorted coldly. “I will not allow justice to be delayed on account of sudden sentiment.”

“What do you say to the price of two thousand francs? It is only a trifling sum, for a man of your means,” Thenardier wheedled.

“Do you think me fool enough to deal with bounty?” Beaufort roared, now getting up from his chair. “I have paid your debts well enough, be content with that!”

“Bah, what are my loans to you? You’d just as soon jail me, you fine Inspector, had I not made myself useful,” Thenardier said. “I have been nothing but your instrument---without me you never would have found where everyone was hidden in Paris. Oh they thought they were done with me yet---“

‘ _They’ve dug themselves well enough!’_ Gavroche decided as he rushed back into the house, just in time to hear a chair fall over. He knocked twice on the door. “The police here!” he shouted. He put one hand to the pistol in his waistcoat even as he saw Beaufort step out of the room, holding Thenardier by his collar. “Good morning, Inspector Beaufort.”

“What are you meddling about here?” Beaufort snarled. “Who admitted you here, Thenardier?”

“What’s this, my son now a bobby?” the older Thenardier man wailed as he tried to wrest himself free of Beaufort’s grip. His agog expression shifted into one of pure scorn as he looked Gavroche over. “Of all professions this had to be the one you chose! My heir, my boy---one of those drunken snitches who know nothing but to kiss the Prefect’s feet---“

Beaufort shook Thenardier roughly. “Take this man into custody for conspiracy to murder as well as bribery,” he ordered Gavroche.

“Gladly, and he’ll sit side by side with the man who killed Glorieux, Brujon, Mangdentelle and all the others,” Gavroche answered. He saw his father’s gaze flicker briefly to Beaufort, who remained impassive. “I had thought someone would have had eyes about that.”

“You’re out of your place, Detective,” Beaufort snarled. “Arrest this man now!”

“Yes, while you stroll with us across the Seine to the Rue du Pontoise. There is less of miasma there.”

Thenardier seized his opportunity to throw himself at Gavroche’s feet. “Come now, be kind to your old father. It is only a simple misunderstanding you have chanced upon, nothing that should earn me another stay in the jug. You know important people, you can convince them I mean no harm,” he whispered. “Or have you become an ingrate too?”

Beaufort laughed hollowly at this scene as he pulled a pistol from his coat. “Against the wall, both of you. I had feared this would happen from the day I heard you were assigned to the case, Detective,” he said, glancing from Gavroche to his father. “A shame, as you have been useful. Your talents should have belonged to another man.”

For a moment Gavroche thought of drawing his pistol but thought the better of it even as he stepped back against the wall. Yet even as he did so he saw his father suddenly reach for something in his waistcoat, giving Gavroche only a moment to evade the rusty poker aimed for his head. He grabbed the end of the metal bar and shoved hard, throwing Thenardier off balance long enough for Gavroche to take him off his feet with a well placed kick.

As Thenardier stumbled and fell to the floor, Beaufort took the opportunity to press the muzzle of his gun against the back of Gavroche’s neck. “One more move and I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

“Where’s your knife? You’ve done your best work with it,” Gavroche asked. He drew his pistol but instead of cocking it to fire, used the firearm’s butt to smash Beaufort’s right kneecap. The older detective swore with surprise, causing him to misaim and fire his own gun right into the ceiling.  This allowed Gavroche to turn about and drive a heel into Beaufort’s midsection, flinging the older man backwards to the floor.

Gavroche took several deep breaths before he stepped away to survey the two nearly insensible men on the floor. ‘ _Wonder what sort of song they’ll have practiced,’_ he thought even as he searched Beaufort’s coat for a pair of handcuffs, which he used to restrain Thenardier. He also brought out his own pair of cuffs, which he likewise used on Beaufort. He then strolled downstairs and whistled to the porter. “My friend, we need a wagon for two men!” he called.

“Where am I supposed to find one?” the porter bawled.

Gavroche grinned and tossed a single franc to this man. “You may rent one at the Prefecture. Make it quick; ask for Inspector Bahorel to drive it.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and clucked his tongue as he watched the porter scamper off towards the bridge, for once finding himself at an utter loss as to how to tell a tale. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Reckonings**

When Gavroche returned upstairs to the apartment in order to see to his captives, he was hardly surprised to be greeted by his father’s baleful glare. “You’d break your mother’s heart if she could see you,” Thenardier muttered. “After what these police did to turn us out into the street, you turn into one of them?”

Gavroche shrugged as he looked to where Beaufort was still insensible and sprawled on the floor. “She always had a thing to say about fancy feathering.”

The former innkeeper made as if to spit on the floor, but he relented at the last moment as he glanced at Beaufort. “He would have killed me if I had kept my pipe shut. He came to me a year ago, and since then he has robbed me of my peace!” he hissed. “Now be a good boy and save me from him. You’ve got a gun, I see.”

Gavroche felt a frisson of disgust course down his back at his father’s words. “What a messy business!”

“So you’ll leave me to him?” Thenardier asked. “I, a defenceless old man, with this killer?”

“I’ll leave you walking about so you can explain something to the rest,” Gavroche answered. “There are a good lot of folk like the Brujons who’d want to know who sang, and you have the score to it.”

Thenardier blanched as he strained against the handcuffs. “You would dare leave me to them! You’ve certainly learned a lot from your sister, that bitch! Ever since those revolutionaries put ideas in her head, she’s turned her back on her own, and you’re no better!”

“Azelma and the _momes_ might say different,” the younger man pointed out. “You imitated Rousseau too well for their liking.”

“At least I set those brats up in a genteel situation,” Thenardier spat. “Of course had I been as well heeled as you are, I would have certainly done better---“

Gavroche clucked his tongue even as he heard Beaufort stirring. “Easy there, Citizen, we are waiting for our carriage,” he replied.

“Consider this your last day in the service. It’s the least you deserve,” Beaufort growled. “Like father, like son, indeed!”

“He’ll protect me from the likes of you!” Thenardier jeered. “That’s what we decent folk do; we look out for our own.”

At that moment Gavroche heard the rattling of a fiacre from the street, prompting him to smooth out the creases in his uniform and dust off his hat. Yet as soon as the apartment door opened he fell silent on realizing who had come all the way from the Rue du Pontoise. “Good day Prefect Delessert,” he managed to say as he made a snappy salute to the burly man standing in the doorway.

Delessert’s steely eyes narrowed as he took stock of the two handcuffed men in the room. “Unfortunately there is another urgent matter that requires Inspector Bahorel’s urgent attention.  Now explain this!”

Beaufort grunted as he raised himself to a sitting position. “This boy is in league with this conman you see here!” he said loudly to Delessert. “They ambushed and tied me up here!”

“Then why am I tied up as well, you booby?” Thenardier retorted.

“I am speaking only to him,” Delessert barked before glaring at Gavroche. “Why have you placed them both under arrest?”

“For going after my person, and for conspiring to murder a citizenness,” Gavroche answered. “I came to call on Citizen Beaufort, and I did not find him at his apartment downstairs. I took a look up here and went knocking when I heard a chair fall over.”

“You had reason to believe that someone was assaulted?”

“More of on the verge of it. I found Inspector Beaufort collaring Citizen Thenardier.”

Thenardier burst out laughing. “So see, he’s here to save his father after all! There is my wondrous boy!”

 “You are extending your prison term with every word,” Delessert warned him. “Now what have you to say to this?” he addressed Beaufort.

“I was making a friendly call and Citizen Thenardier tried to bribe me to keep his part in murder silent. He had wanted his eldest daughter killed,” Beaufort replied cruelly. “I asked for Detective Thenadier’s help in arresting this man, but he refused to cooperate, and he handcuffed me here.”

“You traitor! You Brutus!” Thenardier howled, trying in vain to kick at Beaufort.

“Sit still. We haven’t room for you at our Prefecture’s infirmary,” Delessert warned him. He looked pointedly at Gavroche. “Now you will kindly assist me to bring both our friends downstairs; I have not yet paid the fiacre driver’s fee, and we need to be at the Prefecture shortly---“

Beaufort went livid. “You are arresting me too?”.

“I had meant to call on you to clarify some questions that have come up as a result of Inspector Bahorel’s questioning Barrecrosse,” Delessert said sternly. “Pray do not further perjure yourself.”

Beaufort went deathly pale at these words. “You---side with them? This is exactly how things went wrong years ago, with all of Vidocq’s and Gisquet’s prattling about the need for evidence. These men have judged themselves!”

“You are not a law onto yourself, I would bid you remember it!” Delessert said in an undertone as he forced Thenardier to his feet and ushered him out the door to the back stairway.

In the meantime Gavroche made his way to Beaufort with every intention of half dragging him out of the room. “You did for Glorieux. I found him near my apartment,” he muttered as he ushered Beaufort towards the stairs.

“He was guilty of other crimes,” Beaufort sneered. “The Prefecture will pay long and dear for tolerating such miscreants on the streets, beginning with you.”

Before Gavroche could jump back he already felt a searing pain in his left side, enough to force him to his knees. He felt Beaufort’s boot at the small of his back followed by the feeling of falling. The young man managed to throw up his hands to keep his head from striking the floor as he fell onto the stairway landing. From afar he heard Delessert’s swearing followed by running footsteps. Sounds of a struggle broke out at the top of the stairs, ended only by the sickening thud of a body on the floor.

Gavroche soon felt a hand on his flank, clearly stemming the flow of blood there. “Keep your eyes open. We’ll get you to a doctor soon enough,” Delessert ordered. “You there, get the fiacre driver here! We need to bring this man to a doctor!”

“There are bandages in my coat---“Gavroche managed to say through the searing pain and the feel of something warm soaking through his coat. He winced as he felt Delessert pulling the liniments from their hiding place before clumsily pressing them to the wound. “What about Beaufort---“

“Has gotten his due,” Delessert said tersely.

‘ _I thought so as much,’_ Gavroche almost said even as he felt himself being lifted by several pairs of hands the rest of the way down the stairs. At the corner of his eye he could just see two fiacres already waiting in the street. Thenardier was being shoved into one, followed by Beaufort’s once again senseless form. “Where are we going?” he asked Delessert.

“Hotel Dieu. It’s far closer than Val du Grace,” the Prefect said as he helped lift Gavroche into the second fiacre’s backseat. He chafed Gavroche’s wrist. “Stay strong. You’re not through yet.”

Gavroche managed a quick salute. “Understood, Prefect.” 


	12. Epilogue

_A/N: Thanks to everyone who’s read and reviewed this little tale. It was quite interesting to write._

_Till the next story!_

**Epilogue**

Once the initial agony had ebbed, Gavroche was only aware of dull aches mingled with passing shadows and the cloying odors of laudanum and liniments. Occasionally voices pierced this strange haze, but whether he said anything to them, he could not ascertain. He did not know how much time had passed till the light finally came back into focus and he found himself looking up at sunbeams slashing across a wooden ceiling. ‘ _How did I end up back here?’_ he wondered silently, realizing now that he was safely tucked in a bed in a room filled with books---the very same room he had till recently shared with his brothers. As he took a deep breath he felt a sharp heaviness suddenly shoot through his left side, nearly making him double over. “That stinger!” he hissed, now recalling the events in the hostel.   

Suddenly a gasp came from a corner of the room. “Gavroche! You’re awake!” Eponine said as she shoved aside the small writing desk she’d been balancing on her lap.  Her smile was one of relief as she chafed his forehead and neck as if checking for a fever. “How are you feeling? Did you know you’ve been mostly asleep for nearly two days now? Oh what a fright you gave all of us! You really should be more careful when you chase down some people or you’ll get a sticking like that again!”

Gavroche rolled his eyes at this half-scolding ramble, but he checked his laughter on seeing the worry in his sister’s eyes. “Wasn’t I at the Hotel Dieu?”

“At first, but the Prefect sent a messenger to the Palais de Justice---a good thing Antoine had a meeting there! He sent me a note straightaway and I rushed right over. Combeferre and Joly also came to help, and they decided that you were better resting here at home instead of getting poked at by the other doctors at all hours,” Eponine explained. “I’m sorry but we’ve had to give you some doses just for the pain. I know you never really liked that sort of thing.”    

Gavroche tugged down the blanket to get a better look at his left side, which was swathed in lengths of gauze from just under his ribs all the way down to his hip. “An interesting scratch.”

“You won’t forget it. No one ever does,” Eponine remarked, holding up her own twisted left hand. “I s’pose Bahorel can tell you better about what else happened, but that will have to wait after you’ve rested a little bit more. It’s just before lunch, but there’s some soup I can set to boil for you, if you’d like some.”

The mention of food had Gavroche grinning. “I’ve never had breakfast in a cup.” He stuck out his tongue when Eponine laughed and swatted his shoulder before leaving the room. As he shifted to get more comfortable he could hear hushed laughter and light footsteps in the corridor. “I’ve caught you!” he called in a stage whisper.

The door swung open just enough to allow Laure and Julien to dart in the room, stopping only to kick off their shoes and drop their coats by the door. “You’re getting well, Uncle Gavroche!” Laure greeted cheerily as she bounced onto the foot of Gavroche’s bed. She paused to reach down to help Julien scramble his way up. “The bad man who poked you went to jail, that’s what Papa said.”

Julien peered cautiously at Gavroche’s bandages. “Does it hurt?”

“No worse than a bad scrape or knock to the nut,” Gavroche said, tapping the top of his nephew’s head.

Julien wrinkled his nose. “But why did you get so sick?”

“Because it was a very _deep_ wound. I saw it when Uncle Combeferre came to change the bandages,” Laure said sagely as she flopped down next to Gavroche. “Maman was so worried---I could hear her crying even if Papa was trying to help her. Were you going to die?”

Gavroche paused at this query.  “Now what gave you such a word, little mouse?”

“Because I remember that man who wasn’t moving in that room above the bookshop, and people were acting all strange too about him,” Laure whispered.

Gavroche nearly winced at the memory of the incident near the Invalides. “I’m not going to get that way,” he told Laure. “Don’t get in a fright about it.” 

Laure’s eyes were wide as she nodded solemnly. “Promise?”

“I promise,” Gavroche said. “I’ll be around a very long time to watch both of you and Tienne.”

“And to catch the bad people too,” Julien concurred. “So they won’t scare us anymore.”

‘ _If I’ll still be allowed at the Prefecture,’_ Gavroche could not help thinking. Even though Delessert had saved his life, there was no telling how this would measure against the irregularity of investigating Beaufort’s misdeeds. The fact that his father had been heavily involved in the errant officer’s scheme certainly did not help matters.

Before he could ponder this matter for too long he heard the door swing open again. “Run along you two. Your Uncle Gavroche needs to rest,” Eponine chided gently as she set down a large cup of beef broth on the bedside table.

Laure pouted. “Can we stay if we’re very, very quiet? We won’t jump on the bed or poke him.”

Eponine smiled as she straightened out an unruly bow in her daughter’s hair. “Not for too long. You know that Uncle Combeferre said that he shouldn’t even be laughing too hard.”

Julien nodded as he plopped in his mother’s lap. “Will Uncle Combeferre and Uncle Joly visit again later?” he asked.

“Yes, to take a look,” Eponine replied. “Azelma, Jehan, Bahorel, and everyone else have all been asking about you. Navet stopped by and told me he’s helped fix things so your landlady won’t raise a fuss about you being absent with the rent,” she informed Gavroche.

Gavroche nodded and took a few cautious sips of the soup, managing a smile at the full, rich flavour that lingered on his tongue. It had been a while since he’d been able to properly relish a meal, however paltry or simple. “How is it they haven’t talked your ears off?” he asked after Eponine had convinced the youngsters to go off to wash their faces and hands before lunch.

“They _would_ ,” Eponine quipped as she picked up the now empty cup of soup. She bit her lip and looked down for a moment. “Prefect Delessert said that Papa was the one working with Inspector Beaufort. I never imagined he could do such a thing.”

“There were coins involved, so he was going to scratch for those,” Gavroche pointed out.

The woman sighed and bit her lip again. “I know he mentioned wanting to do me a bad turn, but what about Azelma, the boys, or the children?”

“Not a word. Not even about Enjolras and Prouvaire”

“I s’pose that’s the one good thing then.”

Gavroche snorted on seeing his sister’s relieved expression. “Now what coop will he be in now?”

“Certainly not in La Force, or anywhere in Paris. He’d be done for in a day. At least I wouldn’t do it,” Eponine replied, grimacing with distaste. “He of course could get an attorney to wheedle a shorter term for him, mostly for not having actually held the knife, among some other silly excuses.”

“There will not be enough grease for a tongue,” Gavroche said.

Eponine chuckled again before turning at the sound of a baby’s wailing in a nearby room. “Now that’s Tienne being hungry,” she sighed as she got to her feet. “Do try to rest a bit. You’re safe now.”

The very sound of the word ‘safe’ had Gavroche smiling even as his sister left the room. ‘ _They’ll be snug here, for sure,’_ he reassured himself. As uncertain as his own future was, for now to rest in a familiar locale was just what he needed.

After passing a cheery day and a restful night, Gavroche woke the next morning feeling a much missed vigour in his veins. “I’m gathering moss up here and on a Sunday at that,” he said to Enjolras when the latter checked up on him after breakfast.

“To be more to the point you’re feeling social,” Enjolras remarked dryly. He turned at the sound of footsteps in the hall. “What is it?” he asked Jacques.

“Citizen Bahorel is here,” Jacques said. “Should I ask him to come up?”

“I’ll hop on straight down,” Gavroche replied as he sat up and pulled himself to a standing position by holding on to the bedpost.

Jacques tossed a clean blue waistcoat to his older brother. “Navet brought this over, straight from the laundress’ house.”

Enjolras gripped Gavroche’s shoulder to steady him while he dressed. “You’ll have to stay on the settee the whole day. Will you be amenable to that?”

Gavroche nodded firmly as he finished buttoning up his waistcoat and smoothing out his sleeves. “The news gets faster there,” he insisted. It took a great deal of effort and time to safely get down the stairs, but Gavroche willed himself to soldier on. At last he hobbled into the front room, where Bahorel was chatting with Neville, who was keeping an eye on little Etienne’s first attempt to crawl around the room. Today the inspector had eschewed his usual uniform in favor of a more rashly cut purple waistcoat paired with a rakishly cut black coat. “I see the rain hasn’t sodden your feathers,” Gavroche greeted his colleague.

Bahorel laughed as he went over to Gavroche and Enjolras. “Glad to see that the wit hasn’t been knocked entirely out of you.”

“He’s always been strong,” Enjolras concurred as he helped Gavroche onto the settee. He clasped Bahorel’s arm. “How is the inquiry proceeding?”

“As satisfactory as can be expected,” Bahorel replied. “Unfortunately your father-in-law has just turned informant, so he will have to be held at the Conciergerie as a witness.”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow as he crouched to scoop up Etienne, who was now reaching out to be picked up. “Right within sight of the Palais de Justice. How convenient.”

Neville sniffed at this as he retrieved a sleeping cat from an armchair. “Saves the trouble of anyone planning an escape.”

“We keep those witnesses under especial guard. At any rate it’s a temporary situation since his case has to be heard too,” Bahorel explained.

In the meantime Gavroche noticed the letter in Bahorel’s coat pocket. Knowing better than to inquire as to its contents, he merely shrugged as he put up his feet. “What’s the air like at the Rue du Pontoise?” he asked once Enjolras, Neville and Etienne had left the room.

“Embarrassed,” Bahorel replied. He clucked his tongue as he brought out his pipe. “A senior agent in the business of assassination, two junior agents severely injured---and an arrest made in the most unconventional fashion. Poor Delessert had a headache after bringing you to the Hotel Dieu.”

Gavroche smirked, already imagining such a scene. “So what of the investigation?”

“The tale is simple after that bloody incident. Barrecrosse identified Beaufort to his face, and the evidence has fallen into place.” Bahorel shook his head as he tossed a scrap of paper in the woodstove. “There were many things we missed, but you were the only agent who followed his instincts, sense, and logic instead of relying on reputation. The timing of events such as Beaufort’s travels should have suggested a great deal. You should know he did not do _all_ the murders himself---there were a few that he instigated but his hand was evident as the chief engineer.”

“Such as pinching Montparnasse, Babet, and the Changer?”  

“Most famously. He had a neighbor do it, but the espionage was all his. Unfortunately his reputation put his inquiries above suspicion.”

Gavroche frowned at this revelation. “So will he stand trial after all?”

“Most certainly. For one thing he has already been removed from duty. Criminal charges have been filed---and murder does not allow for bail,” Bahorel replied. “He’ll see the inside of a prison---definitely not the ones here in Paris or in Rouen, but the newer penitentiary in Amiens.”

‘ _No cracks in the walls yet,’_ Gavroche thought. “Will I have to give a deposition?”

Bahorel drew out the letter in his pocket. “This is the official summons from the Palais de Justice, to testify in the case of Beaufort regarding the murders in the Place du Temple, of those men he had ‘arrested’ as well as the killing of Victoria Hastings and her child. Since the woman was an English national, the case has a diplomatic import. As of now the Brujons or other parties have yet to file any charges.”

‘ _There’s no one left to put them up,’_ Gavroche thought as he opened the note and browed through the memorandum from the court. “A fine herald!”

“You were expecting a notice of dismissal?” Bahorel asked. “It is no commendation but the Prefecture cannot afford to lose any more agents. You’re to report back to work as soon as you have been properly examined and cleared by either Combeferre or Joly.”  

The younger man sighed, knowing that this would be several days in coming. “I haven’t heard from Frassin yet.”

“He’s recovering well, but he has not yet been cleared for duty either. Perhaps you will both return on the same day,” Bahorel said amiably. He turned at the sound of Laure scampering into the room. “Something’s chasing you, young lady?”

Laure grinned as she hopped up onto the settee. “Uncle Gavroche, that nice lady is here to see you!” she greeted cheerily. “She’s wearing a really pretty dress and has flowers with her!”

It took Gavroche a moment to realize who Laure might have been referring to. “How did she find this address?” he asked.

“Your friend Navet told me,” Minette chimed in from the doorway. She undid her straw bonnet, which was bedecked with pink and purple carnations, in keeping with the tri m on her lavender dress. “Good day to you, Citizen Bahorel.”

Bahorel bowed to her. “I shall importune our hosts for some coffee,” he said before getting to his feet. He clapped Gavroche’s back conspiratorially. “She’s a minx, you watch yourself.”

It was all that Gavroche could do to keep a straight face as he watched Bahorel leave with Laure in tow, and then turned his attention to where Minette was seated in an armchair near the settee. For a moment he thought of sitting up straight but the dull ache in his injury made him think the better of this. “You can’t have come here only for a call,” he said bluntly.

Minette’s eyes widened for a moment before she nodded quickly. “You’re right. There is something I was tasked to do. Citizen Frassin sent for me, to send to you his regards and this,” she said, bringing out a small parcel.

Gavroche found that the bundle was soft in his hands. “What, more bandages?”

“They came from the doctor who’s been caring for him after all,” Minette said with a coquettish shrug. “They’re talking about you at the Prefecture, about how you were brave enough to face that man Beaufort. You’re something of a hero now.”

“I was only at the right place at the right time.”

“It takes a smart man to recognize it.”

Gavroche propped himself up on his elbows. “Does Citizen Tolbert know you’re here?”

“What is it to him? Does he own me?” Minette laughed. “Why is it that you men think you ought to know where a girl should be at each hour?”

Gavroche gritted his teeth at this jibe. “Well I don’t find it practical to be in a quarrel. I know his temper, perhaps half as well as you do.”

“You’re right about that, which is why I know his wooing will only go so far,” she said ruefully. “I shouldn’t be surprised to have those cufflinks returned to me soon.”

Had Gavroche been a more mean-spirited man he might have made a rejoinder to this, but as it was, he found himself feeling wry and melancholy at Minette’s tone.  “What if it comes right for you?”

Minette shook her head. “Even if it could, well there’s an ending to every good story. There always is.” She ran her hands through the flowers in her hat. “I shan’t forget you though.”

“You mean to leave?”

“No! That would have him thinking he drove me out of Paris. I’d never allow that.”

It took a moment till he realized what she was referring to. “A man like him forgets, sooner or later. As you said, he doesn’t own you,” he said, now looking in her face. “Someday---“  

“It will take some time till he quits making a fuss, which is sure to happen.” She plucked a single pink bloom from her bonnet. “The purple ones are mine entirely. This one, you could keep.”

Gavroche gaped at the flower she placed in his palm before looking her in the eye as she rose to her feet. “What, to tuck in my lapel, Citizenness Debault?”

“I don’t mean for you to drop it,” Minette said with a coy smile as she donned her hat once more. “Good day to you, Citizen Thenardier.”

Gavroche was silent as he listened to her footsteps fade before she shut the door. It was just then that he heard a giggle, prompting him to look to where Laure was now running back into the room. “Uncle Gavroche, why did that nice lady leave?” the child chirped.

“She was only asking how I was,” Gavroche replied as he let her climb onto the settee. He saw now both Eponine and Enjolras watching all of this bemusedly from the front room’s doorway. “She’s only a friend of a friend.”

“For now,” Eponine laughed, shaking her head. “Oh only for now!”

Enjolras raised an eyebrow knowingly at Gavroche. “Conduct yourself well.”

“Most certainly,” Gavroche muttered, smiling as he tucked the carnation in the left front pocket of his waistcoat. 


End file.
